October 2002 Newsletter

Now to each global ministry was added the 'Global Community Overall Picture' which describes the situation in all nations of the world, and we divided the world into five different regions: North America, Latin America & the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, and Asia & Oceania. Each global ministry has a description of what is happening in the different regions. They are actual facts concerning issues we have discussed during both global dialogues in year 2000 and 2002. Issues of global dialogue 2004 are also included in this project. Our work is too create a plausible scenario(s) of what the world could be between now and a million years.

This project will help humanity understand itself better.

Certainly our work is sound. We have already produced very valuable and original tools to help humanity: the Vision of Earth in Year 2024, the Scale of Human and Earth Rights and the Charter of the Earth Community, the Earth Court of Justice, global ministries, and we stood for the values we promoted no matter how big was the opponent. Now is time to expand our work for the good of all humanity.

Send your scenario. We will have workshop sessions on the scenarios in Global dialogue 2004.

We have also redefine 'global security'. You may read on it in 'Earth Security'.

Several new global ministries were formed and old ones were updated. If anyone is interested in becoming a minister please submit an application.

Women's rights programs, especially related to AIDS, should be expanded. Women entering the labour market continue to receive less reward than men for equivalent work. Their unpaid work in the home and the field goes unrecognized, and cultural patterns place women behind men in the queues for food and education in nations where these are scarce.

All forms of discrimination against women must be eliminated. Governments must implement action plans and policies to ensure the equality of women. Participation of women and improvements of their status socially and economically can be made better by:

a) women's rights movements
b) improved female literacy
c) diminished infant mortality
d) easily available of improved contraceptives
e) effective family planning programs
f) encourage women to take entrepreneur programs
g) increasing women's involvement in politics
h) educate men to develop their intellectual respect for women
i) make sanctions against governments that do not guarantee the rights of women

The Global Community Overall Picture

North America
Single-mother households are raising one third of the children living in poverty in the United States. Corporations must allow women and men equally to advance in the business.

Countries in Latin America & the Caribbean
These nations have the highest rates of maternal mortality. Governments must change laws about rape, sexual harassment, and equal pay for women.

Africa
Women are not considered for jobs outside the home. The situation can be improved by:

a) increasing enrollment of girls in all levels of education
b) help women entrepreneurs
c) give women access to credit
d) offering women better health care services
e) let women have equal job opportunities than men, equal pay for equal work

Europe
Few women are in top management positions in business. Stressful social and financial pressures force women to work very hard, and thus they have no time to raise children.

Asia & Oceania
It is expected that the changing status of women will improve democracy and equality. Rural women in India are working more to stay in the same place. In Japan women have a high economic and social status.

Peace movement of the Earth Community Organization (ECO)

Historically, a Peace Movement has always been associated with women. It was essentially thought as a feminist initiative. The method of decision making in such movement was intended to expand leadership rather than to narrow it. Most women groups in the feminist movement worked by consensus, the relationship among themselves has always been intimate and caring, and they often included a humanitarian concern for all people. The feminist peace movement has created a value system based on an ethic of caring, caring for each other and caring for the world as well. Women groups have dealt with issues such as motherhood, violence against women, citizenship rights, and oppression. World peace has been interpreted through women's eyes. Even the ecofeminist vision has peace rooted in nature, and the very essence of life and survival have been said as essentially female attributes. The ecofeminist position is that the Earth is our mother, and she is being ravaged by militarism and male-created toxic substances.

Ecofeminists have managed to bring into their groups all kinds of women because of their work in ecology. Women are organizing to save the environment. They have defended a large number of issues from the rain forests of Brazil, to the forests of India and to the toxic waste sites in America.

The women peace movement has been at work throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They have promoted a peaceful solution to all world problems. War has been their greatest challenge as it is a male thing. Nevertheless, they have promoted non-violent settlement to conflicts.

War is the greatest violation of human rights that one people can inflict on another. It brings deaths and injuries, starvation, diseases, millions of people losing their homes and livelihoods, and massive destruction of property. Children and teenagers are placed in internment camps, and several are often forced to serve as soldiers. War not only corrupts the morals of soldiers, it leads to a decline in the morality of the whole nation. Political and military leaders are always convinced that their particular war is justified. From their point of view, there are several reasons to go to war: loyalty to allies, religion, a thirst for power, greed, ancient grievances to be settled, or the desire to alleviate suffering among their people. A non-violent settlement to a conflict would always be more advantageous. War is self-defeating because it cannot secure what it sets out to achieve, protection against attack. The hatred for the enemy whipped up by war and the desire for revenge among the losers leads to an accursed vicious circle from which there is no escape. The difference between aggressive and defensive, or just and unjust wars, is ridiculous. They are tags each side adopted to suit its interests. War and militarism destroy civil liberties within a nation.

What happens to a person's conscience when he/she wears the uniform of the soldier? It is enslaved to the state. He must kill when ordered. No government, whether democratic or despotic, can allow the soldier to decide what to do according to his conscience. That would undermine discipline and the power to fight.

The Earth Community claims that everyone on Earth should be able to live in peace. This peace movement is about courage. Not the courage it takes to go into battle but the courage to organize resistance to war when a bloody taste for it inflames the world, and the threat of prison in a nation where the human rights and freedom of expression have diminished significantly. It is about the courage to say NO to the war industry. It is an industry that destroys life on Earth, corrupts society, and violates morality. Military intervention in the affairs of other nations is wrong. There are other ways, there are peaceful ways, ways that are not based on profit-making and the gain of power for itself. We are conscientious objectors, "non-resistants". That word comes from Jesus, opposing the use of violence:

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."

The evil is the war industry. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus develops the ethic of non-violence and love of the enemies. Early Christians were probably the first individuals to renounce participation in war unconditionally. "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." And he told Peter, "All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." Christ has taught us to show mercy, to forgive enemies, to put up patiently with oppression, to return only good for evil and love for hatred and, therefore, war is inconsistent with the Spirit of Jesus Christ. This shows that a Christian should take no part in war, never, in any way. This all means that violence is futile in the long run. To respond to violence with violence is only perpetuating a vicious cycle of violence.

God prohibits killing, and no exception at all ought to be made to the commandment that it is always wrong to kill. The sanctity of human life is unconditional. A short while ago God, Allah, has spoken to humanity once more. The New Age Revelations are His Word. His Revelations are to be added to previous ones revealed thousands of years ago. Together they are God's Word, and they will guide humanity for the thousands of years to come. His Word reinforce His compassion and love for humanity and His care for all living inhabitants on Earth and of Earth itself. God has said:

"Thou shall banish war as a solution to problems between communities. All Souls involved with war, directly or indirectly, shall face the Soul of Humanity to be purified. All Souls involved in the making of weapons, war product and equipment shall be facing the Soul of Humanity."

There are several reasons for objecting to war: religious, moral and political. People have different degrees of refusal to go to war. Absolute pacifists such as the Earth Community will not cooperate with any preparation for war as decided by the war industry, let alone war itself. Others will accept some kinds of service so long as they are not forced to fight. And others are willing to fight in "just wars." The idea of the "just war" began with St. Augustine. Late in the fourth century he argued that the good Christian, barred from doing violence on his own behalf, could take arms in a war that was just. Several theologians now say that the standards for a just war are:

a) War must be the last resort and used only after other means have failed.
b) War must be declared to redress rights actually violated or for defence against unjust demands backed by the threat of force. It must not be fought simply to satisfy national pride or to further economic or territorial gain.
c) The war must be openly and legally declared by a legal government.
d) There must be a reasonable chance of winning.
e) The means used must be in proportion to the ends sought.
f) Soldiers must distinguish between armies and civilians and not killed civilians in purpose.
g) The winner must not required the utter humiliation of the loser.

It can be debated whether any war has ever satisfied all these reasonable conditions. There were always Christians who rejected violence. They believed Christ's way was the pursuit of peace. During the Crusades, from the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, Christians fought to recover the Holy Land from Islam, and the Church plunged into extreme violence and cruelty. Even then there were some who had the courage to criticize the theory and practice of their time. They were like the early Christians in denouncing war. Only now they were not rebelling against a heathen empire but against the wordily Church. In their opposition they formed sects, separate from the official Church. Their pacifist convictions found their source in a return to the Bible. These awakened Christians went back to the fundamental ideas of Christianity, to the New Testament, and took the Sermon on the Mount as their ideal.

The people of the Earth Community are dedicated in using our resources to resolve conflict, promote democracy, and fight hunger, terrorism, disease, and human rights abuses. In order to bring about the event of peace, the Earth Community is offering other good organizations around the world to work together to bring warring parties to peace. We can accomplish this task by concrete actions such as:

a) Tracking armed conflicts within and between nations around the world and offering assistance in dispute resolution;
b) Promoting human rights and democracy;
c) Monitoring democratic elections; and
d) Educating the public about the advantages of a peaceful solution to any conflict.

The Earth Community Organization (ECO) has given back responsibility to every citizen on Earth. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of life within Earth Community. We will work together in working out sound solutions to local and global problems. It would be wrong and dishonest to blame it all on the leader of a country. Most problems in the world must find solutions at the local and global community levels (and not assume that the leader alone is responsible and will handle it). There is a wisdom in the ways of very humble people that needs to be utilized. Every humble person deserves to have ideas respected, and encouraged to develop his or her own life for the better. Sound solutions to help manage and sustain Earth will very likely be found this way. Everyone can help assess the needs of the planet and propose sound solutions for its proper management, present and future. Everyone can think of better ideas to sustain all life on Earth and realize these ideas by conducting positive and constructive actions. When there is a need to find a solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible damage as opposed to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss; that is the grassroots process. The Earth Community Organization can help people realized their actions by coordinating efforts efficiently together.

The responsibility of a peacemaker is to settle differences through compromise and negotiation before they erupt into violence. Conflicting views do not have to bring about fighting. War is an irreversible solution to a problem. War is never an appropriate solution to resolve a conflict.

The worst environmental degradation happens in wars. Farm products in fields and livestock are abandoned, there is no more control on toxic wastes, and water, air, and land are polluted. People are displaced and feel no longer responsible for the quality of life in their communities. Historically, the industrialized nations have caused the most damage to the environment, with their careless technology and policies. Emissions from factories and vehicles have caused ozone depletion and acid rain. Leaders of the wealthier nations must be willing to accept responsibility for past mistakes and to help pay the financial burden for environmental protection of the developing nations. This is the most damaging conflict of interests between the rich industrialized countries and those that are poor and struggling just for existence. The Earth Community must help wealthy and poorer nations reach a better understanding of each other's needs. All aspects are interrelated: peace, human rights and the environment. The poor is more concerned with ending starvation, finding a proper shelter and employment, and helping their children to survive. Environmental issues become meaningless to the poor. In reality, all concerns are interrelated. As soon as the environment is destroyed beyond repair, human suffering is next. Ecology has no boundaries. All nations suffer the effects of air pollution, global warming, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, acid rain, ozone depletion, silting of streams, and countless of other environmental problems. This was the reason for proposing to the Earth Community the Scale of Human and Earth Rights.

The Earth Community wants to provide a forum where international conflicts could be argued and resolved peacefully. Because of hatred and mistrust, disputing parties always find it difficult to express constructive ideas or proposals. A face-to-face meeting may not even be possible. The Earth Community offers to be a trusted third party that would carry ideas back and forth, put forward new proposals until both sides agree. When both parties feel they have gained more than they have lost from the process, the outcome is a win-win settlement for peace.

Declaration of Beliefs of the Earth Community

We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fighting with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatever, and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the Spirit of Allah, God, which leads us to all truth, will never move us to fight and war against any human being with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Allah, God, not for the kingdom of this world. The Will of God is for life to reach God in the best possible ways. Life is the most precious gift ever given by God to the Universe. Life allows Souls to be conscious of God in as many different ways as possible. Life is the building block through which Souls can have a meaningful relationship with God. By observing the Universe, the galaxies, we are observing and studying God. We are seeing His magnificence, His greatness, and His complex making. There is more to the Universe we observe today, that is there is more to God, much more. God is self-existent, eternal and infinite in space and time Follow God's Word. God's Plan was revealed to humanity a short while ago. The Divine Plan for humanity is:

a) for everyone to manage Earth responsibly, and
b) about to reach the stars and spread Life throughout the universe and thus help other Souls to evolve and serve God in the best possible ways.

The Soul of Humanity is helping to bring about the event of Peace in the world. Knowing that Earth is a spiritual entity as well as a physical entity in space and time in the universe we begin to have a better relationship with Earth and with all its living inhabitants. This way Earth management will become a spiritual and a natural process whereby each person is responsible and accountable for its management the best they can. Peace in the world and Earth management have for too long been in the hands of and affected by government and business leaders, in the hands of a few people on the planet, as opposed to being in the hands of all of us (6.157 billion people on Earth) working together to keep our planet healthy. We are the keepers of the Earth.

The Soul of Humanity will help us:

* resolve problems, concerns and issues peacefully;
* reinstate the respect for Earth;
* work with humanity to keep Earth healthy, productive and hospitable for all people and living things;
* bring forth a sustainable global society embracing universal values related to human rights, economic and social justice, respect of nature, peace, responsibility to one another; and
* help to protect and manage the Earth.

We have the responsibility of managing Earth. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of life within Earth Community. When there is a need to find a solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible damage as oppose to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss.

Life exists on millions of other planets in the universe, and our species got to be who we are today through the evolutionary process. Other lifeforms in the universe may have evolved to be at least as advanced as our species. Their Souls may even be more complicated than ours. They may have merged a trillion times more than our Souls. They may have evolved as well.

The Divine Plan for humanity is:

a) for everyone to manage Earth responsibly, and
b) about to reach the stars and spread Life throughout the universe and thus help other Souls to evolve and serve God in the best possible ways.

The higher purpose of humanity is to serve God by propagating Life throughout the universe. Humanity will evolve spiritually to fulfill God's Plan.

Count down of world population

This 21st century is very crucial for humanity as it will determine our survival or not for the next million year. The Earth Community Organization is proposing to the world a way to achieve our survival. The policies described in this article are by no means the only ones and we do need the global community to send suggestions and recommendations.

Earth has existed for the past 4.5 billion years. Life on Earth has existed for almost 4 billion years. Human activities are influencing the climate to change in many ways. We have transformed entire landscapes. Although our influence is huge our control is minimal. Having initiated the breakdown of the Ozone layer and having set the global warming of the planet in motion it will be hard to reverse these events. History shows that the beneficence of the planet cannot be taken for granted. It has always been hospitable to life of a kind, but not always of our kind. The kind of conditions that suit us are very narrow and our influence is far greater than our control. We are creating global conditions that are threatening all life on Earth. Our manipulations of the Earth atmosphere may generate conditions that could be suitable to only to bacteria in marshes. It is an enormous mistake to take our present good fortune as a given.

The humans species has to regulate its population by means that are voluntary and benign and has to take along with a fair proportion of other lifeforms. Proper Earth management will certainly be a necessary tool to achieve our goal. If not there will be a collapse of humanity and of the environment. From now on every global decision we do will have tremendous consequences on our future.

In general, populations of all lifeforms grow exponentially that is by a steady proportion of whatever was there before. When there is no practical limit on resource then populations usually grow maximally and the only limit is that of the reproductive capacity of the female animal. About 10,000 years ago, human beings were obliged to commit themselves more or less fully to agriculture and the human population was 5 to 10 million. By the time of Christ, after only 8,000 years of large-scale agriculture, the human population was 100 to 300 million. After this time, the exponential growth of the population entered its rapid phase. The billion mark was passed by 1800 A.D. By year 2000, the human population exceeded 6 billion. Thus agriculture allowed a thousand-fold increase in numbers over a period of 10,000 years.

In practical sense, agriculture cannot feed a human population that has grown beyond the capacity limit. We must ask ourselves whether we can stop the growth by means that are voluntary and benign, or whether the eventual environmental restraint will be out of our hands. At some questionable time in our future we will find that our soil will no longer have the nutrients it needs to produce quality food. For some time we may counter this problem by fresh weathering of rock. Not for long! The loss of lifeforms on Earth will be permanent.

Obviously something has to be done! ECO proposes a tight global policy, benignly implemented, or it will be very nasty indeed. In practice, a human population of 10 to 12 billion would be too uncomfortably high and would add a high strain on world resources. What kind of world population would be reasonable? What goal should we aim at? A population should be small enough to be sustainable indefinitely and still allow plenty of leeway for ourselves and other lifeforms. It should also be large enough to allow the formation of healthy civilizations.

We propose a world population of 500 million. The policy to apply is for every family to have only one or two children. It would take a thousand years to reach our goal of a population of 500 million.

Some religious people will argue that to reduce human reproduction is to prevent the birth of possible babies, to deny life for the glory of God, and that more babies means more glory. We understand this view as we have discussed the sanctity of all life during Global 2000 and Global Dialogue 2002. Proceedings are on our website. Read section 'Evolution, Creation and now, Guiding Souls'. God loves diversity in Nature and in Souls. Let us discuss those legitimate concerns.

A short while ago God said:

1. Thou shall be One with humanity and thou shall have a higher purpose, and that is to propagate Life throughout the Universe. I shall provide you with means to travel the galaxies.

2. Thou shall have another higher purpose, and that is to manage Earth responsibly.

It was necessary for our species to reach today's population of 6.157 billions in order to leap to our next stage of evolution that will bring us closer to God and propel humanity to fulfill the Divine Plan.

What is the Divine Plan for humanity?

The Divine Plan is the greatest hope for humanity and is now being revealed. God could not have created a universe with billions of galaxies, each one with billions of stars such as our Sun, unless He had a plan for Life, especially for an advanced species such as ours.

We have the responsibility of managing Earth. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of life within Earth Community. When there is a need to find a solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible damage as oppose to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss.

Life exists on millions of other planets in the universe, and our species got to be who we are today through the evolutionary process. Other lifeforms in the universe may have evolved to be at least as advanced as our species. Their Souls may even be more complicated than ours. They may have merged a trillion times more than our Souls. They may have evolved as well.

The Divine Plan for humanity is:

a) for everyone to manage Earth responsibly, and
b) about to reach the stars and spread Life throughout the universe and thus help other Souls to evolve and serve God in the best possible ways.

The higher purpose of humanity is to serve God by propagating Life throughout the universe. Humanity will evolve spiritually to fulfill God's Plan. Soon God will show us the way to reach the galaxies.

Our proposal of a world population of 500 million does not in any way contradict God's Plan for humanity. On the contrary, it reinforces the Will of God for the diversity of Life throoughout the universe. By accomplishing our higher purpose we will be able to propagate trillions of liferforms and much more over the universe. Beside, with such a small population, there is no doubt that our species would last at least a million years. That is

0.5 x billion x 1 million = 0.5 x 10 ¹⁵ person-years

But if we let our population rise to about 20 billion then we may not survive more that 1,000 years or so. That is

20 billion x 1,000 thousand = 2 x 10 ¹³ person-years

In order words, if we exercise restraint the total number of human beings who will be on the planet could be at least 25 times greater than it would be if we allowed the population to increase to 20 billion. Who, then, are those who deny life for the glory of God?

In practice, if our proposal of one or two children was accepted then the population would eventually fall. We would make all efforts to minimize infant mortality. We need to ensure that the women of the world who have shown an interest in the proposal of family planning would have access to all the help needed to achieve their goal. Contraception for men is also desirable.

If that is still possible, what are those other lifeforms we should take along with us?

The creatures we are most directly aware, the grand survivors of the overkill by the human species over the past several million years, are bears, beavers, elephants, mooses, lions, rhinos, wolves, tigers, camels, kangaroos, deer, camels, antelope, cheetahs, coyotes, koalas, and others you may want to add. None of them has a chance to survive in the wild, unless we take their cause seriously. Even then it will be difficult to keep them with us for a long future. The Scale of Human and Earth Rights was designed to protect the ecosystem of the Earth and that certainly includes do what we can to take along with us as many God's creatures as possible. The Scale of Human and Earth Rights takes first into account all reasonable needs of the human species. On top of the scale are the protection of the global life-support systems without which no life could survive on the planet. Then the primordial human rights are those basic human rights that have kept us going throughout the evolutionary stages of life on Earth.

Beside the global warming, the human activity that affects Earth most is that of food production. We need to form a global ministry dealing only about agriculture and the protection of our soils. All nations will be part of the ministry. We have to design systems of food production that meet our own needs, and also leave room for these other lifeforms we want to take along with us. Western agriculture is designed in the end to maximize profit. As a primordial human right, the prime concern of the human species is to feed people. Therefore we have to do things differently. We will have to produce less livestock as we effectively double the population we need to feed: ourselves, plus the livestock that is supposed to be feeding us. We also have to apportion the land surface of the whole world more efficiently, using some for highhly intensive food production (which makes use of less land), some for extensive agriculture (combining food production with wildlife conservation) and designing some specifically as wilderness areas with global corridors between them. Hopefully this will help natives of British Columbia, Canada, to settle their land claims in their favor as they are the only people in Canada who can help protecting wildlife, at least for now. There should be a definite and specific clause in any agreement with the natives that it is what they will do with the land and not turn it into a huge industrial site as would the white man do.

Global warming is certainly affecting the survival of these other lifeforms we want to take along with us over the next million years. Climate change has always been a major factor throughout the entire evolutionary stages of life on Earth and will continue to be so in the future. We will have to make sacrifices not only for our own survival but also for all life on Earth. Changes now are far too rapid for these other lifeforms to adapt. They will have to tolerate us more to survive.

Obviously our survival on Earth and that of these other lifeforms are dependent on our behavior and attitude to the world. This point was largely discussed during Global 2000 and Global Dialogue 2002. ECO has researched and developed sound solutions to humanity's problems and recommendations are made available on our website. Our new ideas are part of life natural selection process and will be passed on from generation to generation. The human gene pool is changing naturally worldwide. We ourselves are in a position to change our species and create a new one depending of natural circumstances. Because the human population is now so large, mutations are accumulating more rapidly than ever before over the entire evolutionary stages of our species. This do not necessary means we are evolving to become smarter people. That is an unlikely option. It means we are adapting to new circumstances. Evolution will be active most likely in circumstances occurring after an ecological crash or a world war involving nuclear weapons. Such catastrophic events might eliminate all life as we know it on Earth. But we cannot predict which particular lifeforms are liable to evolve and be dominant species. Our brain may be turned off by an evolutionary step for survival, to adapt to the new circumstances. That is if we survive as a species after such huge ecological change. But then we dont really know of what life is capable of...! What life has created so far on Earth may be a small sample of what it is capable of in the future.

Whatever happen in this 3rd Millennium, which we have called the New Age Civilization of the 3rd Millennium, will depend of us and to what extent we are willing to make a difference to manage Earth wisely. Will our actions be geared to survive a decade, a hundred years, a thousand years, or a million years? If our actions were geared to survive a million years, the chances are that we would learn to master great things including harnessing the sun flare energy, interstellar travels, genetic engineering, and reajusting the planetary position of another planet in our system to initiate a new life on its surface. Is it no worth to make sacrifices now?

A sound governance of the Earth is needed for the long term survival of our species. This is 'la raison d'etre' of the Interim Earth Government. ECO has proposed the creation of global ministries to manage Earth and humanity's global problems. The higher purpose of humanity is to serve God by propagating Life throughout the universe. So dont we have an obligation to do whatever we can to protect life on Earth?
The problem and solution to the world overpopulation was described in length in the October Newsletter (see Article H: Earth policies to reduce human population to 500 millions). So there is a human solution. We propose a world population of 500 million. The policy to apply is for every family to have only one or two children. It would take a thousand years to reach our goal of a population of 500 million. We would make all efforts to minimize infant mortality. We need to ensure that the women of the world who have shown an interest in the proposal of family planning would have access to all the help needed to achieve their goal. Contraception for men is also desirable.

Today most major global problems stemmed from our overcrowded planet. Human activities of an overpopulation create major global problems. Global warming is certainly an obvious example of such global problem caused by an overpopulation of the planet. Conflicts over freshwater usage are on the rise. It is only a matter of time before a global war over water becomes a reality. We seem to rely on technology to resolve all these problems. But you cant. They are major problems and each one of them take time to resolve. When all global problems are thrown at you at the same time there is no way humanity can survive the 21st century. Even today too many nations have a nuclear arsenal that can easily destroyed and be the cause for the destruction of all life on Earth. Doubling the world population would make the world situation a thousand fold worst than it is now.

More healthy civilizations could coexist together in peace if the global population was 500 million. The factors that could reduce world's population are:

* promoting one or two child per family
* increase income
* improve literacy
* insure protection of new born children
* educate men and women to family planning and let them be equal partners in all aspects of life
* make men and women use of inexpensive contraceptives with easy access to them
* promote a more healthy and rewarding lifestyle with just one child per family
* expanding women's opportunities
* access to high-quality reproductive health services

Most major global problems would disappear with a world population of 500 million. Today the urban population is increasing at the rate of 60 million a year requiring the resources necessary for the equivalent of an additional six megacities every year; there are already 19 megacities in the world.

It is imperative that action be taken to control the overpopulation and human activities so that planetary security is not endangered. The current world's population is 6.2 billion and is expected to grow to 9.3 billion by 2050. Nearly 98% of this growth will be in the poorer countries. At that time, there will be more older people than children, and the number of people who 60 or older is expected to reach 2 billion, putting stress on retirement and health care systems worldwide.

About half the world lives in cities on 2% of the land, consuming about 75% of the resources and producing roughly the same percentage of the pollution. In one generation, 3 billion city dwellers will grow to 5 billion while, at the same time, natural resources to support this growth are shrinking. Biodiversity feeds directly 40% of the economy of the developing countries, yet this natural resource is rapidly being destroyed.

About one out of every children under five years old in the developing countries is malnourished. Sufficient nutrition, shelter, water, and sanitation will have to reach people in slums, or the world will see more migrations, disease and conflicts. Medical and social advances have allowed to increase significantly life expectancy. Older people will be require to continue work few more years to help the younger generation.

The Global Community Overall Picture

North America
The United States are the only industrial nation with a fertility rate at or above the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. North Americans need to be educated on the impacts of an aging population and immigration on the economy and resources. The average American consumes about 50 times more resources than the average Indian. North American consumers obtain resources at a cost lower than the true value and at the expenses of less economically fortunate regions.

Countries in Latin America & the Caribbean
There is a rapid urbanization of the region due to migration from rural areas and by high fertility among new arrivals in urban settings. About 54 million people are hungry in the region. Political unrest is caused by a disproportionate income gap.

Africa
Africa's population is expected to grow from 13% of the world's population in 2000 to 20% by 2050. Africa has major management problems in all areas. In fact, much of the urban management class is being reduced by AIDS. AIDS orphans grow up in crime groups and join armed conflicts over natural resources. Several major global problems can be resolved by:

* promoting one or two child per family
* increase income
* improve literacy
* insure protection of new born children
* educate men and women to family planning and let them be equal partners in all aspects of life
* make men and women use of inexpensive contraceptives with easy access to them
* promote a more healthy and rewarding lifestyle with just one child per family
* expanding women's opportunities
* access to high-quality reproductive health services
* community-based natural resource management practices and security of land tenure

Europe
Its population is expected to fall from 12% of world's population in 2000 to 7.1% by 2050. Future benefits for an aging population will therefore be difficult to provide. The EU is enforcing the U.N. decisions on development in the region. More conflicts with immigrants are expected.

Asia & Oceania
Because of its low birth rates, by 2080 Japan's population will be half of what it is today. Low birth rates are also seen in Australia. About 60% of all Arabs are under 25 years old with very little employment. In China, 7% of the population is older than 65. Its annual population growth rate is 1.07% and its fertility rate is 1.82 %. When translated in absolute numbers, the increase causes major challenges to social and economic development.

Earth Ministry of Water Resources

This Ministry is managed and administered by James Mwami.

More funding is needed for safe water supply projects. The world situation concerning freshwater is critical. Water tables are diminishing on every part of the world. Water quality and availability affect environmental quality for life support. Groundwater aquifers are more polluted. Water tables are falling on all continents, while human demand for water increases. Over 1 billion people lack safe driking water. Almost half of the world population does not have adequate sanitation. Most diseases in the developing world are water-related. If current trends continue, half the world could face water shortages by 2032. About 70% of freshwater withdrawals is for agriculture. The quality of the soil for agriculture is also decreasing worldwide.

Agricultural practices must be changed to get more crop per liter of water by:

* developing plants that are drought-hearty and more tolerant to a lesser quality of the soil
* practicing desalination and water efficiencies in agricultural and urban usage

The lack of potable water and availability of water for agriculture use will contribute to the cause of conflicts between nations. In order to avoid conflicts over water, other actions have to be taken:

* investing in reforestation and in watershed management
* promoting the healthy effects of vegetarianism
* using animal stem cells to produce meat tissue without animals
* securing treaties and cooperatives agreements on water rights
* implementing integrated water management plans

The Global Community Overall Picture

North America
Government regulations of the water resource make everyone use water wastefully. Agricultural water subsidies encourage farmers to waste water. The effect of this trend will make it harder for poor people to obtain water. Water quality is affected by contaminants such as hormones, pesticides and drugs.

Countries in Latin America & the Caribbean
Water purification is a major problem in most urban areas. The laws are not effective and people are not educated to be efficient in the use of water. Water conflicts are unavoidable in Mexico, Sao Paulo, Bogota, and Buenos Aires. Attempting to resolve water problems would require:

* moving population to middle-sized cities
* research and development in biotechnology and applied sciences focusing on problems related to food, health and environment
* educating the public on the efficient use of water and the protection of water resources

Africa
Almost half of the African population does not have access to freshwater. Many cities have no running water. Several factors affect the water resource: siltation, desert encroachment, tribal wars, and high population growth. Water conflicts are unavoidable.

Europe
Western Europe has no major water problems. The EU manages water issues. Organic farming is becoming more popular because it costs less than removing farm chemicals from water supplies. Most of the current water distribution infrastructure needs replacing. In Eastern Europe nations, mining and timber industries affect water quality. Water mismagement is a major problems everywhere. Russia has even abolished its environmental protection agency.

Asia & Oceania
Japan developed the technology to change seawater into drinking water. Nations of the Middle East are buying their technology. Israel and other nations produce water through desalination. Water in the Middle and Near East has shrunked substantially and water conflicts are unavoidable. Australia and New Zealand have no major problem with water. Rivers of Asia have 20 times the standard levels of suspended solids, and the region is responsible for over 60% of the world's ocean-damaging, ecosystem-destroying sediment flows. Water problems in China are increasingly alarming. China has 22% of the world's population and has to survive on only 7% of the world's total freshwater resources. Today, there are more than 300 major Chinese cities plus 50 million people in rural areas facing water shortage. More education is needed to explain to the Chinese people that polluted water causes illness which in turn increases health costs and hinders development.

For centuries we have found it necessary to control water so as to have it where we wanted it.

Despite our efforts, some areas still suffer from drought, and some from flood, due partly to the nature variability of climate to change fast than it used to, and this is now impacting on the availability and distribution of water. Our fresh water sources are already being used and yet, the world population is increasing rapidly. This increase in population and the increase of pollutants in our drinking water sources have created conflicts which will only become more and more serious in the near future. In many places in the world drinking water sources are rare, sometimes non-existant, and sometimes were polluted by transnational corporations from our industrialized world and which companies became rich by mining or manufacturing products in those countries. Should anyone be allowed to control our freshwater resources? Is freshwater a 'human right' or is it a 'human need'? Should water resources be privatized and commodified for profit? Or should water be declared a 'human right' in the Charter of the Earth Community? Is it no true that water is just as important to an individual as the air we breathe?

Freshwater is needed and is a human right. So is clean air! The Scale of Human and Earth Rights shows how and where these rights should be included with respect to all other human rights.

Because of an ever-increasing global population and of human impacts on the natural environment, freshwater resources have become essentials to human life and to all life in Earth. There is an urgent need to protect these resources and for integrated understanding of lakes, wetlands and flowing waters.

Fresh water or drinking water is vital to life on Earth. Only 2.5 per cent of all water on Earth is fresh water most of which lies deep and frozen in Antarctica and Greenland. What we drink comes mostly from groundwater, rivers and lakes. Precipitation, melt water from glaciers, dew and fog drip constantly replenish our fresh water resources. They are also constantly depleted by evaporation and transpiration. These water resources are changing due to the the variations in the hydrological cycle from place to place and from day to day. They are all what we have got. Nothing else! They are very precious to all humankind, and to all life as well.

Water in the home comes from either spring water, a deep well, a river or a city reservoir, and is never 'pure'. If water was untreated, it would contain man-made contaminants, minerals, gases, salts, and microorganisms, which would cause unacceptable taste or health risks. Hazardous compounds present in water are mercury, lead, agricultural chemicals, arsenic, organochlorine compounds formed by the chlorine added to municipal water to destroy microorganisms, industrial pollutants, solvents, pesticide, fertilizer, and other contaminants. Our body absorbs equally these contaminants through drinking water or while bathing. City water is regulated for health hazards and does not contain dangerous bacterial contamination. It may contain chemical contaminants from industrial discharge or hazardous waste disposal, vinyl chloride from P.V.C. plastic pipe.

Most people take for granted the water we use to wash the car, to water the lawn, cook and flush our wastes away, to shower, do half-loads of laundry, run the water while brushing our teeth, and ignore a dripping tap, and dump down the drain motor oil, solvents, paints, cleaners. We treat oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams more like parts of our sewer system them our life-support system. We are being made use to this behavior from childhood while watching television. We often see commercials on TV showing a person washing an automobile or spraying a lawn wastefully and without care. There is also too much violence shown on television and in cinemas, and nothing in the movies is aimed at educating people on the proper respect for water. We think it is right, our right to be as we are. The entire television networks and film makers and producers over the world should be re-educated in what is right and what is not. They should be responsible and be made accountable for the counter-educating commercials and products they are advertising on their networks. What the school system is doing in educating children is being negated by the television networks and film making industry. It is counter-productive and, at the end, the costs hit the taxpayers at home, one way or the other. The Polluter-pays Principle should apply to television networks and film making industry. They may use Human Rights for their defence but they should pay all the costs of the impacts of their advertisings and mindless production. They create behavioral patterns in the general population from childhood and they should be billed big time.

Here is a school project. Ask your students to write thousand of lines for their preferred actors. The idea is to write a line, say five seconds long, the actor could say during a movie or on TV. In a one hour show, the actor could say between five to ten different lines you have writen. These lines would be related to the protection and proper management of the Earth, its life-support system, the ecosystems and the environment. You could also try to send the lines to the actors.

As individuals, we can make changes in our ways of using water and dispose of wastes, both inside our homes and outdoors, and find ways to conserve and protect our water supplies. Water conservation is a means to ensure that there will be enough water for future generations.

Good quality of water supplies to satisfy our lifestyle carries a price tag defined here:

P(water) = P(storing) + P(distributing) + P(treatment) +

P(maintaining and operating) + P(e,h)

where P(e,h) is the term representing the associated environmental and health price tags i.e. the impacts on the environment and our health.

The costs of obtaining, storing, heating, distributing water are steadily increasing, and so are the environmental and health impacts associated with those costs. The costs for treating wastewater to make it suitable to return to river systems are equally increasing and many communities now charge residents an extra fee for treating wastewater. Consumption rates vary largely from one community to another, and between urban and rural areas. Some communities have been forced to restrict water consumption for short periods of time.
There should always be a responsibility by government for certain essentials such as protection over water. Management and ownership of water should never be handed over to private control. Deregulation and privatization of essentials must stop and never be included in international treaties such as the NAFTA, FTAA, GATS and WTO. Transnational companies would be considered as "investors" and the projects they operate would be an investment under these treaties. These companies would have the advantage in overwhelming the local authorities (all levels of government) and they would be allowed to request compensation of any action or decision that diminishes their profitability. Any action by a municipality or a local community to ensure safe drinking water standards, any remedial orders of health officials and any effort by a local community to provide local economic benefits are all subject to compensation awards in millions or even billions by a WTO Tribunal for loss of profit.

Fresh water resources and clean air are at least if not more important to every human being than any other human rights ever listed in any charter of any society. If there was a scale of values to be drawn where would you insert these two human rights?

Human rights are those that individuals have by virtue of their very existence as human beings: to live, eat, drink fresh water, breath fresh air, have shelter. Just as human beings have human rights, they also have moral, legal responsibilities and related obligations and accountabilities. Every person needs Oxygen to live so clean air is certainly a primordial human right by our very nature. A large part of our body is made of water and we could not live without water; therefore water is also a primordial human rights by our very nature.

Fresh water resources and clean air are therefore proposed to be categorized as human rights.

Human actions constantly modify the hydrological cycle and also constantly pollute available water. The hydrological balance is changed by:

* Irrigation
* Drainage
* Land use change
* Removal of trees
* Removal of vegetative cover
* Expansion of paved areas
* Building of dams
* Building of channels
* Building of inter-basin transfers

A Water Resources Assessment is a prerequisite for sustainable development and management of a country's water resources. It provides the basis for a vast range of activities:

* Domestic and industrial water supply
* Hydropower production
* Irrigation and drainage
* Maintenance of human health
* Mitigation of flood losses
* Navigation
* Preservation of the aquatic ecosystem
* Tourism
* New legislation and regulations
* Strategies and policies that deal with priority of uses and resolution of conflicts

The existing and future uses of water are constantly challenged; balancing supply and demand is made even harder by the amounts of pollution found in the air, land and waters. Pollution is widespread and people are dying because of it. As soon as more pollution is added into the fresh water systems than people and all life die. This is true even with the best system in the world. We live on the edge. Rainwater could carry pollution to the fresh water supply, and it is too late.

Today there are a multitude of pollution sources and just to name a few:

* Animal manure
* Discharge from industrial processes
* Drainage from mines and industrial wastes
* Leaching of the residues of fertilisers and pesticides used in agriculture
* Acid rain
* Oil spills from ships
* Storm water systems from cities carry pollution
* Gulf courses upstream or near a lake
* Untreated sewage
* Leakage from oil storage tanks
* Many of the 100,000 or so commercial chemicals employed in the world today create difficulties as a lot of them are released into aquatic ecosystems
* Wet and dry deposition of materials transported through the atmosphere and which originate from emissions made in industrial areas and from motor vehicles

Water pollution varies in severity from one region to the next depending of the density of urban development, agricultural and industrial practices and the presence or absence of systems for collecting and treating the waste waters.

It is necessary to measure the water's quality, quantity and biological characteristics in every country. A lot of the data in the global hydrological network dedicated to measuring these elements are missing. It is non-existent in most developing countries. Data on water use are also scarce.

Global demand for water is rising. The rise will accelerate into the future because the world population is expected to reach 8.2 billion by the year 2024.

Despite the efforts of worldwide organizations to improve the water services of the developing countries, in 1995 some 20 per cent of the globe's population of 5.7 billion people still lacked a safe and reliable water supply, and 50 per cent were without adequate sanitation. Lack of these services is the basic reason why more than a billion people live in poverty.

Even though regulations have been imposed by governments in the industrialized countries to protect their nations' water resources, people are still dying. This is due to the fact that regulations are not enforced as well as they should, regulations are not tough enough, and people dont care and often challenge them their own ways. We basically live on the edge. No safety net!

Human health is dependent on a wholesome and reliable supply of water and safe sanitation. It has been estimated that at any given time about half the people living in developing countries are suffering from water-related diseases caused directly by infection, or indirectly by disease-carrying organisms that breed in water. Diarrhoea. infections by parasitic worms, river blindness and malaria are among the most widespread of these diseases. More than five million people are estimated to die each year from diseases related to inadequate sanitation and hygiene practices, and drinking polluted water.

In the developed world there is concern about the health effects of exposure to various chemicals in drinking water. Pollutants can build up in shellfish to the point that they harm the people who eat them.

The effects of pollution on wildlife are better observed: death, population decline, reduced success of hatching, birth defects for the birds, fish and other forms of life in rivers, lakes, wetlands and deltas.

The Water Scarcity Index is the water use as a percentage of the available water resource. It can be shown that the margin between the global available resource and the volume of water used is going to diminish in the future. Population growth is the major factor. By the year 2024, the regions of stress will include two thirds of the world's population. By 2050, they will cover most of the globe. As the crisis approaches and as water resources become scarcer, the risk of conflict over them will become greater. After 2024, climate change will make conditions worse if precipitation amounts decrease in the major food producing regions and evaporation rates increase. With 50 per cent more people to feed than in 1999, the volume of water needed for food production is expected to increase by 50 to 100 per cent. The bulk of the increase in food production will come from irrigation which, in turn, will require more money to be spent on long distance water transfers and dams. There will be greater competition for these waters. The cost of water will certainly rise.

In order to avoid conflicts and wars over water, The Earth Community Organization is proposing to make water at the top of its agenda. Better understanding and much more data are needed. All nations need to assess their water resources and make projections for the future. Water resources must be managed. We propose here to make fresh water a human right. We have also discussed the human need for clean air in the article on Climate Change, the Proceedings of the World Congress, and in previous Newsletters. There are more than enough facts that show solid proof for the nedd to make clean air a human right as well.

Community rights (2) on the Scale of Human and Earth Rights

It our experience and knowledge that by-laws, regulations, standards will not save a community and all life unless the resources are managed for the long run in mind. Global warming is an example of how bad things got to be.

Let us look at our history as a species, the human species, the millions of years of evolution that got us here. How have we survived? We fought predators around us looking for a human being to snack on. We lived in cave for protection and security. We survived together. When a predator got too close to our group, did we ask Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam is a fictutious name, did we ask Uncle Sam to defend the group just by himself? By himself Uncle Sam would have been the predator's dinner. NO. The whole group fought the predator and we killed it, and probably ate it too. We survived because we worked together to protect the group. We are who we are today because we lived as a community.

So why do we give resources to Uncle Sam? Where is the logic? Where is our sense of self survival as a community gone? What happen to it? Is it not burried lock, stock, and barrel under a culture, in a way of life and of doing things, that is counterproductive? During two global dialogues, the Earth Community Organization has developed the Scale of Human and Earth Rights to get us and the rest of the world back on track. The Scale tells us what is the most important, and less important. It was designed on values that are part of our history as human beings and on values that have kept us alive throughout the millions of years. We have to correct for the wrong way taken by our society and governing bodies.

The ecosystems of the Earth, the global life-support systems, have to be given the highest priority, the greatest importance, because that is where they sit on the Scale of Human and Earth Rights. The rights of the community to life, clean air, freshwater, a healthy environment, security, is the most important right on the Scale. It is a primordial human right. The right of the property owner, Uncle Sam, is much lower on the Scale, near the bottom of it.

In most places, Uncle Sam is a developer, any corporation from a logging company to a food packaging company, even Natives maybe called Uncle Sam, even nation governments maybe called Uncle SAM. They lost their way.

History can help us understand ourselves and what is happening to us, and our impact upon the rest of the world, only when we look at ourselves on the grand scale of time. As members of families, we note the passing generations. Historians traditionally deal in centuries. For the most part we are unaware of the deep rhythms that lie beneath naturally occurring events, rhythms that must be measured in millennia, or in millions of years, or in tens of millions of years. We have a huge effect upon all life on Earth and the fabric of the planet itself yet we are vaguely aware of the rhythms. From an engineering point of view that is totally unacceptable. If Earth was seen as a spaceship whith specific life-support systems, to think of those rhythms would be of outmost importance. The knowledge and understanding of the rhythms would determine our policies now, today. Even though our lives are so brief, a million years should be a proper unit of political time. Politicians would become in a way engineers who can think not only a week at a time but can also think ahead a million years. The world needs 'engineer politicians' with the highest integrity of judgment.

It is a necessity to establish the Earth Resources Ministry that will be assessing, compiling, managing and protecting Earth resources, and the Earth Court of Justice prosecuting cases involving crimes related to the relentless misused of the Earth resources.

The actual overpopulation of the planet is linked to the issue of environmental security through the impact that people have on the Earth's life-supporting resources and climate change. Evidence has multiplied of worldwide ecological degradation resulting from human activity: less forests, polluted air and water, less fisheries, soils losing fertility or being eroded, desertification, overgrazed grasslands. Life is critically threatened from all sides. Industrialized countries account for an astronomical and wasteful use of non-renewable resources and energy. Per capita consumption of fossil fuels in industrial countries is ten times higher than in developing countries. The pattern for key metals shows even greater disparities.

In developing countries, the most important environmental pressure is linked to poverty. Poor people put pressure on the land and forests, over-exploiting them to survive. These countries must be helped. They must accept the implementation of the Scale of Human and Earth Rights and the Charter of the Earth Community into their way of life. We must give them access to technologies that use fewer resources, energy efficient technologies, 'clean' technologies.

The Glass Bubble concept of 'a Global Community' was brought forward during Global 2000 as a fundamental concept to define the working of global communities of the New Age Civilization of the 3rd Millennium.

Wherever you go, you are inside 'a global community'. Every thing, every living creature there, interacts one upon the other. Influences inter-weave and are responsible for causes and effects. Worlds within worlds orbiting in and out of one another's space, having their being.

To interact knowledgeably within one's global community has to be taught ~ especially to urban children. It has to be brought to them very clearly all life forms interact and depend upon other life forms for survival. They need to know reasons why ignorance of nature's law causes such damage, and why working in harmony with nature produces such good results. The world is already witnessing effects of global warming, itself being caused by ignorance and indifference of nature's law.

The concept of the Glass Bubble was extended to include the planet Earth and all the global communities contained therein.

The following definition of The Global Community was found appropriate:

The Global Community is defined as being all that exits or occurs at any location at any time between the Ozone layer above and the core of the planet below.

We can no longer perceive ourselves as a People who could survive alone and a People who does not need anyone else. We belong and depend to this much larger group, that of The Global Community. The 21st Century will see limitless links and interrelationships with The Global Community.

One could think of a typical community of a million people that does not have to be bounded by a geographical or political border. It can be a million people living in many different locations all over the world. The Global Community is thus more fluid and dynamic. We need to let go the archaic ways of seeing a community as the street where I live and contained by a border. Many conflicts and wars will be avoided by seeing ourselves as people with a heart, a mind and a Soul, and as part of a community with the same.

Every single human being must deal responsibly with the affairs going on in his (her) own 'global community' ~ when a person takes personal responsibility for his own affairs ~ he becomes empowered as a person. He can then reach beyond his own property and family, and help to work with others living in and around, even a part of the local community he lives in ~ the villages, the town community, the surrounding territory, and so on.

The key is personal responsibility. Therefore the individual is the important element, one who takes responsibility for his community. This individual cares about jobs, homes, streets, the welfare and success of his community.

When a group of ordinary people realized they, personally, will make the changes they need in their fields, in their village. They can then find ways to bring these changes for all. There is a wisdom in the ways of very humble people that needs to be used. Every humble person deserves to have ideas respected, the courage to develop his own life for the better and for the good of all. Sound solutions to help manage and sustain Earth will very likely be found this way. Everyone can help assess the needs of the planet now and propose sound solutions for its proper management, present and future.

Perhaps now we should introduce some important members of The Global Community: the global civil society, the Earth Community, the human family, all different ways of expressing the same people. Most of the time many politicians representing their citizens at the United Nations have no knowledge, experience, and understanding of global problems. They seek advise from others, and these 'others' are always memebers of the global civil society. Yet politicians make global decisions or the lack of them during meetings. Politicians become actors on the world scene. Actors taken jobs they are not always qualified to take in reality. They make decisions and they dont understand consequences. In effect, politicians are threatening the security of all people and all life on Earth.

The global civil society is made of people from all aspects of life who have a greater understanding of the problem whatever it may be. The global civil society is the mind, heart and Soul of humanity, the human family. They maybe NGOs, businesses, agencies, scientists and professionals, religious groups, or other groups. They should have a voting right during all meetings of the General Assembly and Security Council of the United Nations. They are given an important status in Earth Government.

During Global 2000 and Global Dialogue 2002 we have found why each member of this Global Community is important ~ and how all work together to create a good place to live. Now is time to assign rights to these working communities. What rights should be assigned to 'a global community' and to The Global Community? All life on Earth is part of communities and, therefore, every human being has a responsibility toward all lifeforms.

To determine rights requires an understanding of needs and reponsibilities and their importance. The Scale of Human and Earth and the Charter of the Earth Community are the best guidance for continuing this process. The Scale shows social values in order of importance and so will help us understand the rights of a community. What are the universal needs of a person, family, a community?

All families need shelter, food, parents, a child (see Article in October Newsletter 'The world overpopulation problem resolved along with several other global issues') , language, body of knowledge, certain skills, a source of income. Security of the home is an important aspect for any family and the global community it belongs to. Essential elements and concerns of a community were listed in this Newsletter. Please read 'Biophysical and Economic Assessment of Mount Benson and surroundings in the context of a Vancouver Island Urban Master Plan'. These needs raise the question of interacting universal responsibilities. In terms of parenthood, parents must raised their children mentally and physically healthy. It is a responsibility to do so. Which also means each local community must have an educational system to help parents rasie the child.

On the Scale, Primordial Human Rights are those that individuals have by virtue of their very existence as human beings: to live, eat, drink fresh water, breath clean air, security, and have shelter. Human rights represent an ideal and a supreme goal which can give meaning to life in society. Throughout the history of humanity, the rights of human beings have been defined and enshrined with reference to the values of the dignity of each individual and of freedom, equality and justice. These values are universal.The Earth Community Organization(ECO) has accepted and enshrined them into its own ways of behaving and dealing with all peoples. Cultures and societies differ so much that their expression takes varying forms, but diversity does not affect the foundation of inalienable values constituted by human and Earth rights. Each individual is recognized as a representative of humankind. Human dignity resides in each of us, and this dignity must be recognized and respected by all.

As universal values, equality, justice and freedoms are concerned with our ability to decide, to choose values and to participate in the making of laws, and they are dependent on the recognition of other people. These values forbid any form of discrimination on the grounds of race, nationality, sex, religion, age or mother tongue. By accepting both values of freedom and equality we can achieve justice. One can be answerable for one's actions in a 'just' way only if judgements are given in the framework of democratically established laws and courts. Social justice is another universal value to which Earth Community aspires and accepts as a universal value. Social justice consists in sharing wealth with a view to greater equality and the equal recognition of each individual's merits. All persons within a given society deserve equal access to goods and services that fulfill basic human needs.

The ecological base is the essential prerequisite for the effectiveness and exercise of all rights recognized for human beings. The stewardship of the ecological base has to be given priority before the fulfilment of various economic and social wishes. Demands resulting from the socio-economic system of a particular country have to find their limits in the protection of the global ecosystem. Vital interests of future generations have to be considered as having priority before less vital interests of the present generation. Supply chains have to be designed in a way, that the goods can enter after usage or consumption into natural or industrial recycling processes. If serious damages to persons, animals, plants and the ecosystem cannot be excluded, an action or pattern of behaviour should be refrained from. A measure for supplying goods or services should choose a path which entails the least possible impact on the ecological and social system concerned. This way functioning proven systems will not be disturbed, and unnecessary risks will not be taken. Supply strategies consuming less resources should have preference before those enhancing more resource consumption. The idea of sustainability has been extended to be a moral and ethical state, as well as an economic and environmental state, wherein sustainable consumption patterns respect the universal values of peace, security, justice and equity within the human relationships that exist in Earth Community. When there is a need to find a solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible damage as oppose to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss. The existing and future uses of water are constantly challenged; balancing supply and demand is made even harder by the amounts of pollution found in the air, land and waters. A large part of our body is made of water, and we cannot live without water; therefore water is a primordial human right by our very nature. In order to avoid conflicts and wars over drinking freshwater, freshwater has been categorized as a primordial human right. Industrial pollution plays a major role in the deterioration of nature but this time the level of pollution is above the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. Pollution also affects significantly human health and all lifeforms on Earth. Every person needs Oxygen to live so clean air is certainly also a primordial human right by our very nature.

Morally right actions or policies are those that result in the greatest number of people. How meaningful is the right of the greatest number of people if they agree to damage the ecological base of the Earth. The greatest number of people cannot and will not be allowed to supersede the rights of the ecological base of Earth.

How meaningful is the right to life or to participation in political life if poverty, gender inequality, destitution and epidemics prevent individuals from enjoying freedom of movement, freedom to vote, to marry and so on? The economic and social rights are the essential prerequisite for the effectiveness and exercise of all other rights (other than ecological rights) recognized for human beings. The developing countries are having a harder time than others to achieve the exercise of these rights on a lasting basis, with the problems of economic globalization presenting new challenges. We must therefore beware of enforcing economic rights alone to the detriment of individual civil rights and the rights of all individuals to decide their own fate and the future of their country, their political rights. The universality of human rights recognizes the right of all individuals to participate in the cultural life of their community and of other country, to receive education and training, and to be informed.

Traditional customs and standards could burden the sustainability of all life on Earth. They could burden Earth society or any society forever, and holds individuals in a straitjacket. We cannot accept that. No one can! There are choices to be made and you must make them. Cultures can develop and can go on developing. Even religious beliefs may evolve. We are living now and we are able to create these changes. Cultural and religious differences cannot be a reason or an excuse or a pretext for not respecting human and Earth rights including and most importantly the ecological rights. Quite the contrary, all kinds of cultures may promote human and Earth rights. They are different in their achievements, but they are equal in dignity where they are expressions of freedom. At any time or in any given place, men, women and children use their culture to invent new ways of making human and Earth rights a living reality. Diversity enriches us if it respects the dignity of each individual, and if it takes account of human and Earth rights as a whole.

Global consumption is a very important aspect of a community's needs. Consumers should be concerned with the impact of their decisions on the environment but also on the lives, human and Earth rights and well-being of other people. Since one of the key functions of families as a social institution is to engage in production (selling their labour in return for wages) and consumption (using those wages to buy goods and services), then the role of families has impacts on sustainable consumption and development. This certainly limits the rights of a family and of a community.

Just as corporations have social responsibilities and so do consumers in societies. Consumers are socialized to improve the quality of their lives. Quality of life is a multi-dimensional, complex and very subjective concept. For instance, someone who has changed their consumption habits to better ensure that their choices will make a better quality of life for themselves, the environment and future generations, may be seen by others as having a lower or inferior quality of life since they have removed themselves from the materialistic mainstream characteristic of our consumer society. Someone may feel that an absence of violence and abuse in their life leads to a higher quality of living even though they have fewer tangible resources, money, or shelter; peace of mind and freedom from abuse has increased the quality of their daily life relative to what it was like before. There are universal quality of life values which lead to 'human betterment' or the improvement of the human condition. In addition to the value of species survival (human and other living organisms), they include: adequate resources, justice and equality, freedom, and peace or balance of power. A better quality of life for all people of Earth Community is a goal for all of us.

The political system of an individual country does not have to be a democracy. Political rights of a country belong to that country alone. Democracy is not to be enforced by anyone and to anyone or to any community. Every community can and should choose the political system of their choice with the understanding of the importance of such a right on the Scale. On the other hand, representatives to Earth Government must be elected democratically in every part of the world. An individual country may have any political system at home but the government of that country will have to ensure (and allow verification by Earth Government) that representatives to Earth Government have been elected democratically. This way, every person in the world can claim the birth right of electing a democratic government to manage Earth: the rights to vote and elect representatives to form the Earth Government.

In order to elect representatives to Earth Government it is proposed the following:

A.    Each individual government in the world will administer the election of representatives to Earth Government with an NGO and/or members of Earth Government be allowed to verify all aspects of the process to the satisfaction of all parties involved.
B.    Representatives be elected every five years to form a new Earth Government.
C.    It is proposed here that there will be one elected representative per 1,000,000 people. A population of 100 million people will elect 100 representatives. This process will create a feeling of belonging and participating to the affairs of the Earth Community and Earth Government
D.   A typical community of a million people does not have to be bounded by a geographical or political border. It can be a million people living in many different locations all over the world. The Global Community is thus more fluid and dynamic. We need to let go the archaic ways of seeing a community as the street where I live and contained by a border. Many conflicts and wars will be avoided by seeing ourselves as people with a heart, a mind and a Soul, and as part of a community with the same.
E.    Earth population is now 6.114 billion people. If all representatives had been elected this year there would be 6,114 representatives to form Earth Government. They would be the Legislative elected body of Earth Government. They would participate in some ways in choosing the Executive and Judiciary bodies of Earth Government.

The roots of the 'mad empire' wish for oil

It has become a necessity to implement a total and global embargo on all American consumer products, goods and services, and mass destruction chemicals, nuclear war heads, weapons, war products and war equipment. The war industry throughout the world must be put to a complete halt and shelved forever from humanity. The Earth Community is asking all peoples never again to buy American products.

What are the reasons for this total embargo?

The United States have lost credibility as a nation able to lead others. They have opted out of resolving the problems of global warming and going along with all other nations by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. They have requested the International Court not to include their military as they dont want their soldiers to be taken to Court. In order word, Justice is for everyone else but not for them. They have created hate in the Middle East, the most ancient civilization and they expect the Earth Community to go along with them and pay for a war they are creating for the purpose of taking over the oil resources of the Middle East and, eventually, destroying China. China, another ancient civilization, is their next objective. Americans are obviously racists. They want the destruction of all ancient civilizations. They also have no respect for the survival of the human species and of all other lifeforms on Earth. They are a culture of violence and war. They are bullies.

The world is wiser and will not harm the United States and the American people. But we will stop them as bullies must be stopped. Humanity has no need for bullies especially when they have the biggest nuclear arsenal and other weapons of mass destruction in the world. The way things are going now, after they take over the Middle East, Americans will make Adolph Hitler look like a kid in the block. Like President Bush said many times we have to prevent the worst to happen. The worst is for Americans to continue their work of destruction and nation predators.

I may be the only Canadian who will stand for Justice in the world but here 'I am Canadian'. I speak also on behalf of the Earth Community, the human family. America no longer stands for Peace, freedom, Justice and democracy. You no longer stand for any of those values. You broke away from those values a while ago and I'm here to remind you of them. America can no longer be seen as a good representative nation of the world. Asides from invading other nations you refuse to ratify the Kyoton Protocol as has done the international community and yet you are asking for help from this same community to go to war which itself is the next most destructive action of the environment. This is insane! The Earth Court of Justice has an action against all nations that have not ratify the agreement. We may not have the resources to enforce Justice but we know you are all guilty of the worst crimes.

In our September 2002 Newsletter, we have explained how the American Government never applied ethical and moral values in the activities of their trade in the Middle East. They have made trade a despicable act of dealing with one another between human beings and between nations. No laws! No regulations! No ethics! No moral responsibility and accountability! Everyone has the "freedom" of destroying the global life-support systems! Everyone has the "freedom" of human rights abuses! Now pollution, diseases, terrorism, poverty, social and economic injustice have no boundaries. American have brought disgrace to humanity by their selfish, immoral, unethical, incoherent, inconsistent, dishonnest, erratic, and mostly aimed at making money behavior in the Middle East and towards Afghanistan.

And yes it is your behavior that brought up September 11. It is about time you say me-aculpa.

Canadians know Americans in their guts. We have been invaded a long time ago. This is about to change. If it all depended on me I would close my border, from coast to coast, to all Americans and their goods and services. We dont need you! We never did! It was your dis-information department that created the illusion that we needed you. Canada can do without you in every way! We dont need of your culture of violence. At age of six an American child has seen so much violence on television that he or she could give the chill to any child born in the Middle East. You are useless to Canada! But you need us. You badly need of our resources. For the protection of life globally, I would triple the prices of our coal, oil, natural gas and electricity, wood products, and of our basic food products including freshwater. You also need us to treat you like kings of the house even though you are bullies with no hearts and Souls. And you can keep your money! Stay home as Canadians are having a party tonight and we dont want it spoiled by bullies.

In 1947, you have coerced the United Nations in creating the State of Israel. This was completely illegal and arbitrary. The Jews of Israel and their religious beliefs are the Trojan Horse for invading the Middle East and surroundings nations.All an illusion about an invading military force disguided as a democracy and defending the principles of freedom and democracy, and the land given to them by God himself. Back then your hidden agenda was and still is today the invasion of the Middle East and the exploitation of the oil resources. Invasion of the Middle East will give you a base to break up China into provinces as was done with the USSR. Exploitation of the oil resources will keep your economy healthy for the next thousand years. That's was your plan then and is still now. The only problem with your plan is that you have lost your mind, your heart and your Soul in the process. You are not the kind of leader the world wants or needs. You are the Prince of Evil himself. You are the darkness. You have lost credibility! The values you are now promoting are no longer Justice for All, freedom and democracy. They are dictatorship and war. They are the destruction of the global life-support systems of the planet, and of all life. We will stop you! We will bring down the American economy and we will split America into several states free to live at peace with the rest of the world.

Justice! Justice is a universal value. It is for everyone, everywhere in the world. We want Justice in the Middle East, not another invasion. We want the Earth Court of Justice to handle Justice. We dont want of a puppet Higher Court that would be anything like the tribunal of the WTO or the Internation Court. They are a mockery of Justice. We dont want the United Nations to be in charge of Justice because you have coerced the UN organization ever since its creation into doing your five wishes. We want the annulment of the special privileges of the Five Permanent Members of the UN. We want one vote per million people. Your five wishes are done with now. You no longer have any more wishes. We want Justice at the UN and that mean to reorganize the UN as a democracy.

You have lost all respect of most nations of our world. ECO has explained to you over and over again the problems you are creating in the world. Many times we have explained to you that Earth is like a space ship with its own life-support systems and that they are being threatened by your Way of Life. Global warming is here and now! Life is being threatened by your way of life and get on with solving your problems just like everyone else on the planet. You cannot be a leader for the good of the planet. We no longer want nations to be invaded. Humanity has no need of bullies. You have not even got to the point to realize that September 11 was your doing alone. Along with the British and the Russians you have created hate in the Middle East and you have given to trade a bad reputation, a bad name. You have diminished the way of doing business to being a trade between tugs. Along with the World Bank, the IMF, the UN, and the WTO you are making the world increasingly insecure and at war.

The Earth Community, the human family , is asking all Peoples of the world to stand for those values we know are designed to protect the global life-support systems and peace. We have to tell our friends, the American People, that have taken the wrong direction and that their behavior is no longer acceptable. Justice is for everyone a universal constant. The Earth Court of Justice will see to that. The protection of the global life-support systems is everyone affairs and everyone must cooperate all they can. The Scale of Human and Earth Rights was designed to sustain us and all other lifeforms we want and can take along with us for the next million years.

The Earth Community, the human family, is asking all Peoples not to buy American products directly or indirectly.`We want our message be felt in their economy and maybe they will realize a better and wiser course of action. We want the Canadian border from coast to coast be closed completely until they have changed their course of action.

Conflicts and wars between nations

Several times in the past we have let America know we disapprove of their policies in the world. ECO has made it clear that we disapprove of war of any kind for any reason. War is the greatest violation of human rights that one people can inflict on another. It brings deaths and injuries, starvation, diseases, millions of people losing their homes and livelihoods, and massive destruction of property.

The worst environmental degradation happens in wars. Farm products in fields and livestock are abandoned, there is no more control on toxic wastes, and water, air, and land are polluted. People are displaced and feel no longer responsible for the quality of life in their communities. Historically, the industrialized nations have caused the most damage to the environment, with their careless technology and policies. Emissions from factories and vehicles have caused ozone depletion and acid rain. Leaders of the wealthier nations must be willing to accept responsibility for past mistakes and to help pay the financial burden for environmental protection of the developing nations. This is the most damaging conflict of interests between the rich industrialized countries and those that are poor and struggling just for existence. The Earth Community must help wealthy and poorer nations reach a better understanding of each other's needs. All aspects are interrelated: peace, human rights and the environment. The poor is more concerned with ending starvation, finding a proper shelter and employment, and helping their children to survive. Environmental issues become meaningless to the poor. In reality, all concerns are interrelated. As soon as the environment is destroyed beyond repair, human suffering is next. Ecology has no boundaries. All nations suffer the effects of air pollution, global warming, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, acid rain, ozone depletion, silting of streams, and countless of other environmental problems. This was the reason for proposing to the Earth Community the Scale of Human and Earth Rights.

The responsibility of a peacemaker is to settle differences through compromise and negotiation before they erupt into violence. Conflicting views do not have to bring about fighting. War is an irreversible solution to a problem. War is never an appropriate solution to resolve a conflict.

The Earth Community wants to provide a forum where international conflicts could be argued and resolved peacefully. Because of hatred and mistrust, disputing parties always find it difficult to express constructive ideas or proposals. A face-to-face meeting may not even be possible. The Earth Community offers to be a trusted third party that would carry ideas back and forth, put forward new proposals until both sides agree. When both parties feel they have gained more than they have lost from the process, the outcome is a win-win settlement for peace.

We are proposing to the people of America and Irak to come to the table for discussion before war arises. We will help you.

We understand your problems in America. We have studied America's Way of Life:

* global warming is OK because it will cost us less money to heat up our home in the winter time
* war is OK and has made us rich
* democracy is for between us (sometimes) but not for Arabs and Moslems of the Middle East
* invading other nations is OK and gives us more free resources and that keeps our economy healthy
* human rights are for between us not for them. Are they humans?!?
* the environment!? What's that? Does it pay for my mortgages and polluting machine bills?
* trade is for the US not for them, what they have belong to us
* spiritual relationship with God!? Hey! Money is everything! Butt out! We have already bought a Heaven.
* poverty in the world!? How much money can we make out of them? We can take their resources.
* justice is for between us not for them. They might take our military to the Earth Court of Justice. We assure you we are not guilty of anything. We did not create the September 11 event. They did! Not of our fault! We know someone in Afghanistan who did it, what is the name again, he used to work for our own CIA, used to be a good friend of ours, gosh we trained him, oh yes, Osama bin Laden. He did it! Now he is gone to Irak. He changed his name to Saddam Hussein but we are not fools. We know it is him with a new name. He is the evil not us. Our Intelligence (a section of our 'Dis-information Department'(DD), sorry, defence, strategic security and safety department) knows he is planning to change name again to Jiang Zemin or Zhu Rongji and move to China. Make no mistake he is evil. We gave him a free membership in the WTO during a United Nations Security Council meeting so we could keep an eye on him and attack Afghanistan. Let us all go get him before he changes name again. Let us ask the entire international community, our friends, to spend their money on this one too. You know we do business here. The US is going to make good money in this 'just war'. Once we are in Irak we will never let him go. Never! And all that free oil! The best oil in the world! We will have it all for us. Who needs OPEC when you can have us. Ha! We can just see those knots who want to protect the global life-support systems by having us use as little oil as possible. We tell you! The BOOK says the Earth was created for us and only for us the US six thousand years ago. It is writen...!?! That reminds me we should change the history books to spell 'us' the 'US'. We will have an all made in America global warming party in Irak. Let us burn a dozen wells to light up Iraqis women. We should invite Bill Clinton... Monica Lewinsky is not going to be here. Good! Bill is going to have a whew wet day with the women. Well...! There is no Justice here! We have already made sure of that, and our friends understand us, ooopps, sorry, US, so...Human rights!?! Iraqis are not people so they dont have human rights. Is it not wonderful to be oversea in an ancient Islamic and Arabic civilization setting. Let us call our Jewish friend owner of ABC and BBC, you know the guy who manage the DD to inform the public, to come over here with his troops to make a historical broadcast of our military protecting the Peace in the world. There should be no mention of the real reasons we are here: take over the oil, say Good Bye to OPEC once and for all, and prepare for the invasion of China those tiny little bees from another one of those ancient civilizations down here, they are not people either...and... ya make sure his troops dont mention that Americans are racists. Let us also change the history books to say that Americans are more 'ancients' than anyone else. I am sure the BOOK must say that too in some ancient scriptures noone has ever interpreted correctly before. Tell Bill to keep his pants up while they are here taking pictures. Not the time this minute! Someone in the broadcasting troops might take his picture with his ... out. But then soemone in the troop might be a member of the Arkeada network with weapons of mass destruction. We are not fools! Now let us see how many of these terrible terrorists armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction we have captured. Gee! They are children! Only rocks around them! They dont look very healthy! They are obviously not like American children with big fat bellies, an evolutionary trait of true American world leaders, the New World Leaders. No matter! Have our secret military team questioned them in secret. If they dont talk English, kill them all, that's proof enough they hate us. We must show to our voters back in America that we are in control. The election is coming soon. Make sure the ABC and BBC troops know that they were found guilty by our military tribunal of planning to blow the entire United States continent with the most advanced weapons of mass destruction. Some of these weapons were so advanced we did not know what they were. Dont mention rocks. Did we say 'continent'? We have already invaded Canada so it is ours and that makes the continent. Right!?!

Politicians create wars. They send the military to solve their problems, satisfy their interest and needs, and destroy the problems or create new ones to be in line with the war industry lobbying. The political game is as deadly as the military game. Peace is the worst enemy to both the potical and military people as peace does not pay for monthly mortgage bills, car payments and lust of the people living off the war industry. It was estimated that in the United States alone the war industry feed over fifty million Americans and has a monthly budget of more than ten trillion american dollars. These people are evils. All of their Souls have already been purified. They will never see the light again.

The Earth Community Organization is promoting the settling of disputes between nations through the process of the Earth Court of Justice. Justice for all is what we want.

Ever since the end of World War I the British tried to colonize the arabs and Moslems of the Middle East and surroundings. Over the past two years, we have proven in articles of several of our Newsletters that the British and American peoples have tried to invade and colonize the Arabs and Moslems of the Middle East. Israel is the Trojan Horse to achieve their goal. Back in 1947, the US have coerced the United Nations to create the State of Israel. It was an illegal and arbitrary process (or the lack of it) that created the State of Israel. There was never a Referendum conducted in the region to find out if there were any reason at all for the creation of Israel (at the time there were only a few Jews in the region) against the will of over one billion Arabs and Moslems. The reason was colonization and invasion of the Middle East for profit and self-interests. Brut and simple exploitation of the people of the Middle East and of their resources. Another invasion but different than the invasion of Vietnam and of other Peoples by the same invaders. After World War II, at the UN, it was easy for the US to get all the allies on their side. The Five Permanent Members of the UN (Great Britain, France, China, US, Russia) had no objection and all passed the resolution that created the state of Israel. That was all that was required. No process! All political! Politicians created the State of Israel without any reason except preparing grounds for a systematic invasion of the Middle East and the exploitation of the Arabs and Moslems and of their resources. In Canada, every province have jurisdiction over their resources. Ask to the Premier of Alberta what he would say if Ottawa was to create a new agency to manage or take over the resources within his province. He would probably seperate from the rest of Canada and join the US. So why would it be any different in the Middle East? Dont people from other nations have the rights to own and control their resources? The US do not think so. We are asking the US to justify their action in the Earth Court of Justice (not in the news media which they own and control). We want Justice for all and universal. We want a process for the creation of new nations. We want the Earth Court of Justice to be an independent and impartial body that will create the process and verify it for the case of the creation of the State of Israel.

The Earth Community Organization is promoting that the creation of a new nation does not have to be at the expenses of human lives and destruction of an entire world. It can and should always be done through a decision made by a higher Court. We are promoting the immediate formation of this higher Court, the Earth Court of Justice to hear cases and to prosecute those nations, corporations, communities, individuals who commit crimes such as:

* nation states
* national political and military leaders accountable for violations of international humanitarian law
* 'core' crimes of genocide
* crimes against humanity and human and Earth rights
* war crimes
* crimes with significant impacts perpetuated against the life-support systems of the planet (for instance wars and use of weapons of widespread destruction are listed under this category)
* crimes related to the relentless misused of the Earth resources
* environmental crimes
* social crimes as the Court may see apply
* crimes stemming from the global ministries

The Court will also be asked to decide on

* the formation of a new nation in the world,
* on disputed lands between nations,
* the de-institutionalization of market speculation, and
* the annulment of the debt of poor or 'developing' nations as the loans are actually a form of global tax given by the rich nations to the poorer ones. The IMF and World Bank loans are called taxes from the rich nations paid to the 'developing' nations; these loans/taxes are really a method of raising global taxes, of redistributing incomes to the poorest communities, of providing debt-free technical assistance to non-industrial and 'developing' countries to help them out of poverty and to meet environmental and social standards. These loans/taxes are not to be paid back to the rich nations.

The Court decides in accordance with:

* the Scale of Human and Earth Rights,
* the belief, values, principles and aspirations of the New Age Civilization,
* international treaties and conventions in force,
* international custom,
* the general principles of law, and
* as subsidiary means, judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists.

There are many instances where the Earth Court of Justice could be successful.

The Earth Community Organization is inviting the peoples of Kashmir, India and Pakistan to dialogue about the disputed territory of Kashmir by settling the disputed land through the process of the Earth Court of Justice. The Earth Court of Justice will be created for the purpose of deciding on the future of Kashmir. Members of this higher Court will be chosen to reflect the Peoples involved here.

The Earth Community Organization is inviting Palestinians and Jews of Israel to the global dialogue to create sustainable communities and a permanent peace movement in the land through the process of the Earth Court of Justice. In 1947, the United States found it easy to coerce the United Nations in creating the State of Israel. The UN had no right to create the State of Israel. They forced their way into a one billion Moslems and have done ever since. The UN along with the United States and Israel, are an invading force, a colonization drive in the same way as the British have done after World War I. The UN committed an illegal and arbitrary act by creating the State of Israel.

The Earth Court of Justice will be created for the purpose of deciding on the legality of the state of Israel and the creation of the state of Palestine. Members of this higher Court will be chosen to reflect the Peoples involved here.

War is the greatest violation of human rights that one people can inflict on another. It brings deaths and injuries, starvation, diseases, millions of people losing their homes and livelihoods, and massive destruction of property. Children and teenagers are placed in internment camps, and several are often forced to serve as soldiers. War not only corrupts the morals of soldiers, it leads to a decline in the morality of the whole nation. Political and military leaders are always convinced that their particular war is justified. From their point of view, there are several reasons to go to war: loyalty to allies, religion, a thirst for power, greed, ancient grievances to be settled, or the desire to alleviate suffering among their people. A nonviolent settlement to a conflict would always be more advantageous. War is self-defeating because it cannot secure what it sets out to achieve, protection against attack. The hatred for the enemy whipped up by war and the desire for revenge among the losers leads to an accursed vicious circle from which there is no escape. The difference between agressive and defensive, or just and unjust wars, is ridiculous. They are tags each side adopted to suit its interests. War and militarism destroy civil liberties within a nation.

What happens to a person's conscience when he/she wears the uniform of the soldier? It is enslaved to the state. He must kill when ordered. No government, whether democratic or despotic, can allow the soldier to decide what to do according to his conscience. That would undermine discipline and the power to fight.

The Earth Community claims that everyone on Earth should be able to live in peace. This peace mouvement is about courage. Not the courage it takes to go into battle but the courage to organize resistance to war when a bloody taste for it inflames the world, and the threat of prison in a nation where the human rights and freedom of expression have diminished significantly. It is about the courage to say NO to the war industry. It is an industry that destroys life on Earth, corrupts society, and violates morality. Military intervention in the affairs of other nations is wrong. There are other ways, there are peaceful ways, ways that are not based on profit-making and the gain of power for itself. We are conscientious objectors, "nonresistants". That word comes from Jesus, opposing the use of violence: "Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."

The evil is the war industry. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus develops the ethic of nonviolence and love of the enemies. Early Christians were probably the first individuals to renounce participation in war unconditionally. "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." And he told Peter, "All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." Christ has taught us to show mercy, to forgive enemies, to put up patiently with oppression, to return only good for evil and love for hatred and, therefore, war is inconsistent with the Spirit of Jesus Christ. This shows that a Christian should take no part in war, never, in any way. This all means that violence is futile in the long run. To respond to violence with violence is only perpetuating a vicious cycle of violence.

God prohibits killing, and no exception at all ought to be made to the commandment that it is always wrong to kill. The sanctity of human life is unconditional. A short while ago God, Allah, has spoken to humanity once more. The New Age Revelations are His Word. His Revelations are to be added to previous ones revealed thousands of years ago. Together they are God's Word, and they will guide humanity for the thousands of years to come. His Word reinforce His compassion and love for humanity and His care for all living inhabitants on Earth and of Earth itself. God has said:

"Thou shall banish war as a solution to problems between communities. All Souls involved with war, directly or indirectly, shall face the Soul of Humanity to be purified. All Souls involved in the making of weapons, war product and equipment shall be facing the Soul of Humanity."

There are several reasons for objecting to war: religious, moral and political. People have different degrees of refusal to go to war. Absolute pacifists such as the Earth Community will not cooperate with any preparation for war as decided by the war industry, let alone war itself. Others will accept some kinds of service so long as they are not forced to fight. And others are willing to fight in "just wars." The idea of the "just war" began with St. Augustine. Late in the fourth century he argued that the good Christian, barred from doing violence on his own behalf, could take arms in a war that was just. Several theologians now say that the standards for a just war are:

a) War must be the last resort and used only after other means have failed.
b) War must be declared to redress rights actually violated or for defense against unjust demands backed by the threat of force. It must not be fought simply to satisfy national pride or to further economic or territorial gain.
c) The war must be openly and legally declared by a legal government.
d) There must be a reasonable chance of winning.
e) The means used must be in proportion to the ends sought.
f) Soldiers must distinguish between armies and civilians and not killed civilians in purpose.
g) The winner must not required the utter humiliation of the loser.

It can be debated whether any war has ever satisfied all these reasonable conditions. There werer always Christians who rejected violence. They believed Christ's way was the pursuit of peace. During the Crusades, from the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, Christians fought to recover the Holy Land from Islam, and the Church plunged into extreme violence and cruelty. Even then there were some who had the courage to criticize the theory and practice of their time. They were like the early Christians in denouncing war. Only now they were not rebelling against a heathen empire but against the wordly Church. In their opposition they formed sects, separate from the official Church. Their pacifist convictions found their source in a return to the Bible. These awakened Christians went back to the fundamental ideas of Christianity, to the New Testament, and took the Sermon on the Mount as their ideal.

The people of the Earth Community are dedicated in using our resources to resolve conflict, promote democracy, and fight hunger, terrorism, disease, and human rights abuses. In order to bring about the event of peace, the Earth Community is offering other good organizations around the world to work together to bring warring parties to peace. We can accomplish this task by concrete actions such as:

a) Tracking armed conflicts within and between nations around the world and offering assistance in dispute resolution;
b) Promoting human rights and democracy;
c) Monitoring democratic elections;and
d) Educating the public about the advantages of a peaceful solution to any conflict.

The Earth Community Organization (ECO) has given back responsibility to every citizen on Earth. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of life within Earth Community. We will work together in working out sound solutions to local and global problems. It would be wrong and dishonest to blame it all on the leader of a country. Most problems in the world must find solutions at the local and global community levels (and not assume that the leader alone is responsible and will handle it). There is a wisdom in the ways of very humble people that needs to be utilized. Every humble person deserves to have ideas respected, and encouraged to develop his or her own life for the better. Sound solutions to help manage and sustain Earth will very likely be found this way. Everyone can help assess the needs of the planet and propose sound solutions for its proper management, present and future. Everyone can think of better ideas to sustain all life on Earth and realize these ideas by conducting positive and constructive actions. When there is a need to find a solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible damage as opposed to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss; that is the grassroots process. The Earth Community Organization can help people realized their actions by coordinating efforts efficiently together.

The responsibility of a peacemaker is to settle differences through compromise and negotiation before they erupt into violence. Conflicting views do not have to bring about fighting. War is an irreversible solution to a problem. War is never an appropriate solution to resolve a conflict.

The worst environmental degradation happens in wars. Farm products in fields and livestock are abandoned, there is no more control on toxic wastes, and water, air, and land are polluted. People are displaced and feel no longer responsible for the quality of life in their communities. Historically, the industrialized nations have caused the most damage to the environment, with their careless technology and policies. Emissions from factories and vehicles have caused ozone depletion and acid rain. Leaders of the wealthier nations must be willing to accept responsibility for past mistakes and to help pay the financial burden for environmental protection of the developing nations. This is the most damaging conflict of interests between the rich industrialized countries and those that are poor and struggling just for existence. The Earth Community must help wealthy and poorer nations reach a better understanding of each other's needs. All aspects are interrelated: peace, human rights and the environment. The poor is more concerned with ending starvation, finding a proper shelter and employment, and helping their children to survive. Environmental issues become meaningless to the poor. In reality, all concerns are interrelated. As soon as the environment is destroyed beyond repair, human suffering is next. Ecology has no boundaries. All nations suffer the effects of air pollution, global warming, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, acid rain, ozone depletion, silting of streams, and countless of other environmental problems. This was the reason for proposing to the Earth Community the Scale of Human and Earth Rights.

The Earth Community wants to provide a forum where international conflicts could be argued and resolved peacefully. Because of hatred and mistrust, disputing parties always find it difficult to express constructive ideas or proposals. A face-to-face meeting may not even be possible. The Earth Community offers to be a trusted third party that would carry ideas back and forth, put forward new proposals until both sides agree. When both parties feel they have gained more than they have lost from the process, the outcome is a win-win settlement for peace.

Declaration of Beliefs of the Earth Community

We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatever, and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the Spirit of Allah, God, which leads us to all truth, will never move us to fight and war against any human being with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Allah, God, not for the kingdom of this world. The Will of God is for life to reach God in the best possible ways. Life is the most precious gift ever given by God to the Universe. Life allows Souls to be conscious of God in as many different ways as possible. Life is the building block through which Souls can have a meaningful relationship with God. By observing the Universe, the galaxies, we are observing and studying God. We are seeing His magnificence, His greatness, and His complex making. There is more to the Universe we observe today, that is there is more to God, much more. God is self-existent, eternal and infinite in space and time Follow God's Word. God's Plan was revealed to humanity a short while ago. The Divine Plan for humanity is:

a) for everyone to manage Earth responsibly, and
b) about to reach the stars and spread Life throughout the universe and thus help other Souls to evolve and serve God in the best possible ways.

Article I

Uncle SAM is at the bottom of the Scale of Human and Earth Rights

Proposal to the Regional District of Nanaimo concerning Mount Benson
and surrounding ecosystems
RDN Board of Directors met on Tuesday
January 28th, 2003, 7:00 PM at City of Nanaimo Council Chambers
455 Wallace Street, Nanaimo, B.C., Canada

The 10 minutes speech allowed is as follow:

Mr. Chairperson
Directors
Ladys and Gentlemen

My proposal is concerned with the future of Mount Benson and surrounding ecosystems. We want to see that the community of the RDN is made aware of how important Mount Benson is to its future. We have come to the conclusion that Mount Benson and surrounding ecosystems must be left alone and that means no further development.

That means the RDN Growth Management Plan must not support further fragmentation and use of endangered ecosystems. Further development would greatly affect negatively the quality of life of the people in the community. It would be better to have no further development until a sustainable land-use plan is put in place that would take into account concerns from the civil society in Nanaimo, concerns such as conservation of our natural environment, drinking water protection, endangered fauna and flora, clean air, protection of fish habitats, and a sustainable ecotourism. We are very concerned about the population increase in the region along with its needs of more golf courses and outdoor recreational facilities. Plan must be made to separate human activities from endangered ecosystems. The natural environment must be secured before further planning for development. RDN watersheds must also be given the highest protection.

That means telling Cercomm Electronics to take his radio tower off the mountaintop, telling truckers and ATVs to roll their wheels someplace else, and having all property owners to pack up their things off the mountain.

That means no more logging and development anywhere on the mountain and surrounding ecosystems.

That means making the area an ecological reserve or a protected park.

That means ecotourism for our children, an industry to give them jobs and keeping our economy healthy.

We are so used to idolatrize property ownership that we cannot imagine how wrong it is for a person (s) to own land resources such as the forests on Mount Benson, and how wrong it is to own property on the same site. It looks very much like what is happening in Russia. A few very rich people are allowed to develop resources such as oil on behalf of the population. They practically destroy the environment in the process and say it is for the economy of Russia. What is wrong with this picture? To explain what is wrong in Russia and in here in the RDN, let me give you a sense of what is real and what is not real.

Let us look at our history as a species, the human species, the millions of years of evolution that got us here. How have we survived? We fougth predators around us looking for a human being to snack on. We lived in cave for protection and security. We survived together. When a predator got too close to our group, did we ask Uncle SAM, Uncle SAM is a fictutious name, did we ask Uncle SAM to defend the group just by himself? By himself Uncle SAM would have been the predator's dinner. NO. The whole group fought the predator and we killed it, and probably ate it too. We survived because we worked together to protect the group. We are who we are today because we lived as a community.

Now going back to those natural resources, our heritage, those forests, freshwater, clean air, fisheries, oil and natural gas, they are needed for the survival of the community. They are critical for health, our health and that of the next generations. They are primordial human rights. So what do we do? This time are we going to tell Uncle SAM: Uncle SAM those forests are yours, do as you please with them. No. We are not. Because Uncle Sam will get very rich and log the land completely for his own profit and welfare, to make himself richer. After a while the forest will be gone, the water polluted, the air polluted and global warming an added disaster, and the community living in poverty and dying. Then Uncle Sam will die after the natural resource has gone forever. And so will all life on Earth will die. It our experience and knowledge that by-laws, regulations, standards will not save the community and all life unless the resources are managed for the long run in mind. Global warming is an example of how bad things got to be.

So why did we give the resource to Uncle Sam? Where is the logic? Where is our sense of self survival as a community gone? What happen to it? Is it not burried lock, stock, and barrel under a culture, in a way of life and of doing things, that is counterproductive? During two global dialogues, the Earth Community Organization has developed the Scale of Human and Earth Rights to get us and the rest of the world back on track. The Scale tells us what is the most important, and less important. It was designed on values that are part of our history as human beings and on values that have kept us alive throughout the millions of years. We have to correct for the wrong way taken by our society and governing bodies. You could participate in Global Dialogue 2004 and help to its success as that would mean putting RDN on the map for the better of all.

In Nanaimo, and in the RDN, Mount Benson and the surrounding ecosystems have to be given the highest priority, the greatest importance, because that is where they sit on the Scale of Human and Earth Rights. The rights of the community to life, clean air, freshwater, a healthy environment, is the most important right on the Scale. It is a primordial human right. The right of the property owner, Uncle Sam, is much lower on the Scale, near the bottom of it.

In Nanaimo, Uncle Sam is a developer, the logging companies, Crown ownership, even Natives maybe called Uncle Sam, even the feds and the provincial government maybe called Uncle Sam. They lost their way.

If we were to let Uncle Sam have his way, the community would lose its natural resources for future generations, think at a sustainable ecotourism here, lost forever. People travelling by ferry to Nanaimo would see Nanaimo and Mount Benson just behind it with a big sign on the mountain that says: HOLLYWOOD 2 for the rich and famous. Is that what the community of Nanaimo wants? Has anyone ever asked the community what it wants? Was there a referendum?

I ask you now to help with a campaign to make the community aware of how important Mount Benson and surrounding ecosystems are to its future and that of future generations. Your participation is critical. Think about:

*    protecting drinking water systems, watersheds
*    keeping waterways healthy
*    enhancing the quality of life of everyone in the community and not just that of the wealthyest
*    making good economic sense
*    preserving our natural heritage
*    saving tax dollars
*    conserving wildlife corridors
*    creating a sustainable ecotourism, an industry that will last forever, creating jobs for everyone

Germain

Germain Dufour, President
Earth Community Organization (ECO) and Interim Earth Government
Apt. 201, 59 Nicol Street , Nanaimo, British Columbia , Canada V9R 4S7
Website of the Earth Community Organization and of the Interim Earth Government
http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/gdufour/
Email addresses
gdufour@globalcommunitywebnet.com
gdufour@globalcommunitywebnet.com

Regional District of Nanaimo ecosystems and natural heritage at the midnight hour

After meeting with the City of Nanaimo Advisory Committee on the Environment (ACE), officials and technical staff of the Regional District of Nanaimo, officials of the Nanaimo Area Land Trust Society (NALT), and with several environmental groups, the Earth Community Organization (ECO) was left with no other alternatives but to create a new society, the Mount Benson Preservation Society, that would focus exclusively on the protection and saving Mount Benson and surrounding ecosystems.

We have also made a proposal to the above listed organizations and to the community at large.

Proposal to the City of Nanaimo and to the Regional District of Nanaimo concerning Mount Benson
and surrounding ecosystems
RDN Board of Directors meets on Tuesday
January 28th, 2003, 7:00 PM at City of Nanaimo Council Chambers
455 Wallace Street

Proposal has several sections:

1. Conducting a Biophysical and Economic Assessment of Mount Benson and Surrounding Ecosystems in the context of a Vancouver Island Urban and Rural Development Master Plan.

2. A follow up to the Vision of the Millstone River Greenway Vision and the RDN Growth Management Plan, and to include this time the remaining section of the RD of Nanaimo in the follow up. The follow up would be done by a newly formed Nanaimo Society.

3. Making Westwood Ridge a city park protected as an ecosystem reserve along with Mount Benson. The City of Nanaimo should buy Westwood Ridge and RDN should buy Mount Benson.

4. Participation of the City of Nanaimo and RDN in Global Dialogue 2004 to be held in the RDN on August 2004. Global Dialogue 2004 is concerned with environmental, economic and social issues of the RDN.

5. We are asking the City of Nanaimo and the RD of Nanaimo to help support our campaign to save Mount Benson and surrounding ecosystems from further development and logging. Help is needed in terms of petition package and brochure, signs, creation of the new Society, investigation expenses for the assessment, and obtaining reports and maps already published by RDN. Help is needed in the purchasing of land to convert it to an ecological reserve or protected area.

6. Allowing civil society participation in the growth of Nanaimo and of the Regional District of Nanaimo. We propose the creation of an environmental advisory committee made of environmental groups, and the civil society in the RD of Nanaimo.

Developing the land on Mount Benson and surroundings will affect enormously the city's businesses, its appeal in attracting investment and tourism.

We are also concerned about the ongoing loss of businesses from Nanaimo's historic Downtown. The City of Nanaimo already recognizes that a clean and healthy environment is vital to the social and economic well being of the City as a whole. The City's Official Community Plan (OCP) second goal is to "protect the environment". Protecting the environment means:

* caring for Nanaimo's natural diversity and ecosystems in the planning of land use and development;
* protecting significant natural features;
* changing the way we do things and live, work, travel and recreate in a more environmentally responsible manner;
* sustain our community by protecting its basic resources: clean air, water and land for the next generations;
* protecting environmentally significant or sensitive areas (ESA), the heritage of Nanaimo's natural diversity;
* planning development so as to protect life and property from natural and human made hazards; and
* enhance awareness and promote community activities that protect and restore the environment.

What will happen when tourists and potential investors found out that we could not protect the land on Mount Benson and surroundings and that developers are powerless in retaining pollution from reaching the city drinking water system?

Why protect ESAs of Mount Benson and surroundings?

* ESAs enhance the quality of life of Nanaimo's community in that they are a multitude of landscapes with a healthy environment: wetlands purify drinking water, forests clean the air, and open meadows are spectacular to see in spring.

* ESAs are unique in that the oak woodlands are one of the four most endangered ecosystems in Canada.

* ESAs bring nature to Nanaimo's community in that they allow residents a chance to live with a large variety of wildlife a short distant from home.

* ESAs are biologically diverse in that they are the sites of life. They are habitats for fish, birds and animals; and natural corridors for wildlife movement.

Some benefits of protecting waterways and the City's drinking water systems:

* Sustainable ecosystems provide habitats and are migration corridors for a variety of species; they are natural habitat for plants, animals and fish.

* They give confidence to Nanaimo's community and add to its well-being by offering pleasing surroundings with sites for rest and enjoying nature, and with recreational and educational sites.

* Roots, vegetation and fallen trees stops bank erosion and stream degradation, slows down flow upland surface runoff and filters out some sediments and pollutants before they reach waterways.

* An attractive city invites investment which in turn creates job opportunities and increases property values

* Economic benefits stretch through the entire spectrum of social and economic activities: commercial, tourism, sport and aboriginal fisheries.

Biophysical and economic assessment of Mount Benson and surrounding ecosystems in the context of a Vancouver Island Urban and Rural Development Master Plan

For development to be environmentally sustainable it must not endanger the natural systems that support life on Earth: the waters, the soils and the living things, and we must use sustainable forms of energy, mining, forestry, fisheries, farming, transportation, petroleum and chemical products. In the long run, an environmentally sustainable development will guarantee us basic needs such as clean air, good food, fresh water, proper shelter, health care, sanitation, energy and jobs.

We are proposing here to conduct a biophysical and economic assessment of Mount Benson and areas. This requires the involvement of the regional district of Nanaimo, the Provincial Government, and the entire community of Nanaimo and surroundings.

We are also proposing the development of an Urban and Rural Master Plan that will significantly improved the Vancouver Island future in regards to its environment, economic development, protection of its resource usages and decommissioning of old sites, and the quality of life of all citizens.

Some of the major results will be concerned with:

* Creating areas for outdoor recreation for everyone.
* Preserving the park system that reflect the unique character and quality of our mountainous and sea setting.
* Provide education and interpretation settings to citizens and tourists about natural and past heritage.
* Protect and enhance wildlife habitats, native fauna and flora, riverine forests, waterfront environment.
* Establish naturally sustainable landscapes and ecosystems.
* Resolve pollution concerns.
* Contribute to aesthetic quality.
* Comprehensive expectation of the quality of the freshwater over the long run.
* The economic impacts of environmental and health degradation, resource depletion, and depreciation of natural stocks. The natural stoks include forests, minerals, soils, fishery, water, wildlife, and air. The use of productive stocks give rise to income and, therefore, both people-made and natural stocks must be considered in a similar manner. The evaluation of sustainable development must include both types of stocks available for use as income or benefits, and all investments and returns as well. Consumption levels of both types of stocks must be maintained without depleting and depreciating the quality and quantity of services the stocks bring in creating wealth.
* The status of each resource and the stocks and productive capacities of exploited populations and ecosystems, and make sure that those capacities are sustained and replenished after use.
* The status of ecological processes and biological diversity of each natural resource; measuring the impacts of consuming a resource on other renewable resources, biological diversity, people health, and life-support systems, and establishing harvest levels.
* The annual change in the stocks of natural resources, quality of the system, their costs, and the services they provide to the economy.
* The welfare, economic development and quality of life of future generations.
* Expenditures on pollution abatement and clean-ups of old sites.
* Play a major role in shaping Nanaimo's image and, therefore, attract tourists and investors.

Essential elements of an adequate Vancouver Island urban or rural development:

a) Suitable community facilities and services.
b) Decent housing and health care.
c) Family stability.
d) Personal security from crime.
e) Adequate educational and cultural opportunities.
f) Efficient,safe and 'clean' transportation.
g) An atmosphere of social justice.
h) Land planning involving the community in the decision-making.
i) Energu conservation and energy efficiency are part of the decision-making process and made part of the community development.
j) The application of the 4 Rs of waste management is integrated in the community development.
k) The use of renewable energy sources, central heating where possible, and cogeneration of electricity are made part of community development.
l) Health promotion with the overall guiding principle for the community: the need to encourage reciprocal maintenance, to take care of each other and the environment.
m) Community businesses, working areas, play areas, social and cultural areas, education areas, and training areas.
n) Water-conservation practices integrated into the community development.
o) Aesthetic satisfaction.
p) Responsive government subject to community participation in decision-making.
q) The form of community development integrates concepts such as cooperation, trust, interdepence, stewardship, and mutual responsibility.

Mount Benson Preservation Society

A) Meeting of the Mount Benson Preservation Society
B) AGENDA for the meeting
C) Constitution of the Mount Benson Preservation Society
D) By-Laws of the Mount Benson Preservation Society
E) Membership Form
F) Explanation of the four interacting circles

A) Meeting of the Mount Benson Preservation Society
Day and time: February 18, 2003, 7:00 PM
Place: Unit 201, 59 Nicol Street, Nanaimo

B) AGENDA for the meeting

* Call for Order
* Approval of the proposed Constitution, By-Laws and Rules.
* Election of the Board of Directors: President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Secretary, Publicity, Membership, Fund Raising, Social, Economic, Environmental, Resources
* Next meeting
* Adjournment

C) Constitution of the Mount Benson Preservation Society

CONSTITUTION

The goal of sustainable development is full human development and ecological protection. Mount Benson Preservation Society adopts the Charter of the Earth Community (ECO) as its model for dealing with issues locally and globally. The Charter recognizes that humanity's environmental, economic, social, cultural, ethical, spiritual problems and aspirations are interconnected. It affirms the need for holistic thinking and collaborative, integrated problem solving. Sustainable development requires such an approach. It is about freedom, justice, participation, and peace as well as environmental protection and economic well-being.

1) The name of the society is
Mount Benson Preservation Society

2) The objects of the society are to:

1) promote sustainable development as defined here by:
        * the technical definition being “a sound balance among the interactions of the impacts (positive and/or negative), or stresses, on the four major quality systems: People, Economic Development, Environment and Availability of Resources,” and
       * the none-technical definition being “a sound balance among the interactions designed to create a healthy economic growth, preserve environmental quality, make a wise use of our resources, and enhance social benefits”
2) promote sustainable development worldwide, establish new standards, goals to be reached, and a benchmark for the 21st century in all aspects of sustainable development; firm guidelines are essential in keeping the four major areas of concern as free as possible from negative growth factors; promote, manage and/or sponsor international meetings and conferences as they relate to sustainable development
3) research and develop local and global indicators and indices for the measurement and management of sustainable development
4) research and develop a sound balance among the interactions of the impacts as defined in 2.1 and in all aspects of sustainable development
5) research and develop products, techniques, processes, methods and programs to fulfill a sustainable development as defined in 2.1
6) promote co-operation amongst levels of government and citizens in planning which will help the measurement and management of sustainable development; bring together businesses and the Public and create a venue where the best ways can be found to sustain resources and measure consumption and use
7) create a committee that will link with the Earth Community Organization (ECO) to access its worldwide network to obtain data from all over the world in all aspects of sustainable development, and use the information obtained to fulfill the goal defined in 2.1; provide access to the information to concerned parties; the gathering and analysis of the information shall be used to help community and home development, and social development
8) encourage and foster and develop among its members a recognition of the importance of a sound sustainable development locally and worldwide
9) provide educational services and training related to:
       * the measurement and management of sustainable development
       * maintaining conditions under which People and Nature can co-exist in productive harmony and fulfill the social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations
       * development of sustainable communities and sustainable homes
10) engage in activities to relief poverty in the world; by searching “a sound balance among the interactions of the impacts” will result in a relief of poverty
11) carry out activities primarily for the benefit of the Public, community and home development, and world development in the spirit of the Earth and its People survival
12) promote an environmental sustainable development that does not endanger the natural systems that support life on Earth: the air, the waters, the soils and the living things

The objects will be carried out on an exclusively charitable basis.

3) On the winding up or dissolution of this society, funds or assets remaining after all debts have been paid shall be transferred to a charitable institution with purposes similar to those of this society, or, if this cannot be done, to another charitable institution recognized by Revenue Canada as qualified under the provisions of the Income Tax Act of Canada.

4) The purposes of the society shall be carried out without purpose of gain for its members, and any profits or other accretions to the society shall be used for promoting its purpose. The Directors shall be a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary, a Treasurer and other officers. The Directors shall serve without remuneration, and no Director shall directly or indirectly receive any profit from his or her position, except to be paid reasonable expenses incurred in the performance of his or her duties.

5) The Society shall be subject to the various Charities Accounting Act, the Charitable Gifts Act, and the Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act. If it is made to appear to the satisfaction of Revenue Canada , upon report to the public trustee, that the Society has failed to comply with any of the provisions of these acts, Revenue Canada may authorize an inquiry for the purpose of determining whether or not there is sufficient cause for the Lieutenant-Governor to make an order under subsection 317(1) of the Corporation Act to cancel the letters patent of the Society and declare it to be dissolved.

6) The borrowing power of the Society pursuant to any by-law passed by the Society shall be limited to borrowing money for current operating expenses, provided that the borrowing power of the Society shall not be so limited if it borrows on the security of real or personal property.

7) Paragraphs 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of this constitution are unalterable in accordance with the Society Act.

D) By-Laws of the Mount Benson Preservation Society

SOCIETY BY-LAWS
OF
Mount Benson Preservation Society

Part 1 - INTERPRETATION

1. (a) In these bylaws, unless the context otherwise requires,

(i) “directors” means the directors of the society for the time being;
(ii) “Society Act” means the Society Act of the Province of Alberta;
(iii) “registered address” of a member means the address as recorded in the register of members;
(iv) “Society” means Mount Benson Preservation Society.

The definitions in the Society Act on the date these by-laws become effective apply to these by-laws.
For all purposes of the Society, “Special Resolution” shall mean a resolution passed by no less than 75% majority of such members entitled to vote as are present or by proxy at a general meeting of which not less than 21 days’notice specifying the intention to propose a resolution as a special resolution has been duly given.
2. Words importing the singular include the plural and vice versa; and words importing a male person include a female person, a corporation, a partnership or other legal entities as are admitted as members by the Board.
3. Board of Directors, Executive Committee or Board, shall mean the Board of Directors of the Society.

Part 2 - HEAD OFFICE

4. The Head Office of the Society shall be in the City of Nanaimo, in the Province of British Columbia, and at such place therein as the directors may from time to time determine.

Part 3 - MEMBERSHIP

5. The members of the Society are the applicants for incorporation of the Society, and those persons subsequently have become members, in accordance with these by-laws and, in either case, have not ceased to be members. The membership shall consist of the applicants for the incorporation of the Society and such individuals and such corporations, partnerships and other legal entities as are admitted as members by the Board. The class of membership shall include memberships such as: student, general, senior, corporate and non-profit organization.
6. A person may apply to the directors for membership in the Society and on acceptance by the directors shall be a member. A person becomes a member by a favourable vote passed by a majority of the members at a regular of the Society, and upon payment of the fee. Such voting shall be by ballot, unless the meeting resolution otherwise decides. Each member shall promptly be informed by the Secretary of his admission as a member.
7. Every member shall uphold the Constitution and comply with these by-laws.
8. The amount of the first annual membership dues shall be determined by the directors and after that the annual membership dues shall be determined at the annual general meeting of the Society.
9. A person shall cease to be a member of the Society

(i) by delivering his resignation in writing to the Secretary of the Board or by mailing or delivering it to the address of the Society;
(ii) on his death or in the case of a corporation on dissolution;
(iii) on being expelled; or
(iv) on having been a member not in good standing for 12 consecutive months;

In case of resignation, a member shall remain liable for payment of any assessment or other sum levied or which became payable by him to the corporation prior to acceptance of his resignation.

10. A person may be expelled by a special resolution of the members passed at a general meeting. The notice of special resolution for expulsion shall be accompanied by a brief statement of the reason or reasons for the proposed expulsion. The person who is the subject of the proposed resolution for expulsion shall be given an opportunity to be heard at the general meeting before the special resolution is put to a vote.
11. All members are in good standing except a member who has failed to pay his current annual membership fee or any other subscription or debt and owing by him to the Society and is not in good standing so long as the debt remains unpaid. Each member in good standing shall be entitled to one vote on each question arising at any special or general meeting of the members. Corporations, partnerships and any other legal entities may vote through a duly authorized proxy as defined in by-laws 86 and 87.
12. If any member is in arrears for fees or assessments for any year, such member shall be automatically suspended at the expiration of six months from the end of such year and shall thereafter be entitled to no membership privileges or powers in the Society until reinstated.

Part 4 - DUES

13. There should be no dues or fees payable by members except such, if any, as shall from time to time be fixed by unanimous vote of the Board, which vote shall become effective only when confirmed by a vote of the members at an annual or other general meeting.
14. The Secretary shall notify the members of the dues or fees at any time payable by them and, if any are not paid within 30 days of the date of such notice the members in default shall thereupon automatically cease to be members of the Society, but any such members may on payment of all unpaid dues or fees be reinstated by unanimous vote of the Board.

Part 5 - BOARD OF DIRECTORS

15. The affairs of the Society shall be managed by a Board of Directors, each Director having a vote, and of whom a majority shall constitute a quorum.
16. The Board shall be appointed by the majority of the membership at the annual general meeting of the Society.
17. The qualification of the Director shall be that he or she is a member in good standing of the Society.
18. Directors shall be eligible for re-election at the annual general meeting of the members. The election may be by a show of hands unless a ballot be demanded by any member.
19. The office of Directors shall be automatically vacated

i) if by notice in writing to the Board he resigns his office;
ii) the members of the Society may, by resolution passed by at least 75% of the votes cast at a general meeting of which notice specifying the intention to pass such resolution has been given, remove any Director before the expiration of his term of office, and may, by a majority of the votes cast at that meeting, elect any person on his stead for the remainder of his term;
iii) vacancies on the Board, however caused, may, so long as a quorum of Directors remain in office, be filled by the Directors from among the qualified members of the Society if they shall fit to do so, otherwise such vacancy shall be filled at the next annual meeting of the members at which the Directors for the ensuing year are elected; but if there is not a quorum of Directors, the remaining Directors shall forthwith call a meeting of the members to fill the vacancy.

20. All Directors of the Society shall hold office for one year or until their successors are elected or appointed in their stead.

21. The Directors of the Society shall serve without remuneration and no Director shall directly or indirectly receive any profit from his position as such; provided a Director may be paid reasonable expenses incurred by him in the performance of his duties, and any Director who is a bona fide employee of the Society (whether full time, part time or contracted out) , may be paid remuneration with respect to services performed by him as an employee.
22. Meetings of the Board shall be held as often as may be required, but at least once every three months, and shall be called by the President. A special meeting may be called on the instructions of any two members thereof provided they request the President in writing to call such meeting, and state the business to be brought before the meeting. Meetings of the Board shall be called by ten days’notice in writing mailed to each member or by three days’notice by telegram or telephone. Any four members shall constitute a quorum, and meetings shall be held without notice if a quorum of the Board is present, provided, however, that any business transactions at such meeting shall be ratified at the next regularly called meeting of the Board; otherwise they shall be null and void.
23. The President shall be Chairman of all meetings of the Board, but if at a meeting the President is not present within 30 minutes after the time appointed for holding the meeting, the Vice-President shall act as Chairman; but if neither is present the Directors present may choose one of their number to be Chairman at that meeting.
24. The Directors may delegate any, but not all, of their powers to committees consisting of the Director or Directors as they think fit. A committee so formed in the exercise of the powers so delegated shall conform to any rules imposed on it by the Directors, and shall report every act or thing done in exercise of those powers to the earliest meeting of the Directors to be held next after it has been done.
25. A committee shall elect a Chairman of its meetings; but if no Chairman is elected, or if at that meeting the Chairman is not present within 30 minutes after the time appointed for holding the meeting, the Directors present who are members of the committee shall choose one of their number to be Chairman of the meeting.
26. The members of a committee may meet and adjourn as they think proper.
27. No resolution proposed at a meeting of Directors or committee of Directors need be seconded and the Chairman of a meeting may move or propose a resolution.
28. A resolution in writing, signed by all Directors and placed with the minutes of the Directors is as valid and effective as if regularly passed at a meeting of Directors.

Part 6 - OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY

29. There shall be a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary and a Treasurer or in lieu of a Secretary and Treasurer, a Secretary-Treasurer and such other officers as the Board may determine by by-law from time to time. There may as many officers as needed to direct all committees created by the Board.
30. One person may hold more than one office except the offices of President and Vice-President. The other members of the Society need not be members of the Board and in the absence of written agreement to the contrary, the employment of all officers shall be settled from time to time by the Board. The Board may appoint such agents and engage such employees as it shall deem necessary and such person shall have such authority and shall perform such duties as shall be prescribed by the Board at the time of the appointment.
31. The officers of the Society shall hold office for one year or until their successors are elected or appointed in their stead. Separate elections shall be held for each office to be filled. An election may be by acclamation, otherwise it shall be by ballot. If no successor is elected the person previously elected or appointed continues to hold office.
32. If a Director resigns his office or otherwise ceases to hold office, the remaining Directors shall appoint a member to take place of the former Director. The members may by special resolution remove a Director before the expiration of his term of office, and may elect a successor to complete the term of office.

Part 7 - DUTIES OF DIRECTORS

33. The Directors of the Society shall be responsible for co-ordination of the work of the Society and for carrying out the policies and directives of the Society as determined by the Society’s general meeting.
34. The Board shall be responsible for ensuring that one member chairs meetings of the Society, for ensuring that funds of the Society are accounted for, and for ensuring that minutes of meetings of the Society are maintained.
35. In all cases of death, resignation, retirement or removal from office of an officer, all books, papers, vouchers, money and other property of whatever kind in his possession or under his control belonging to the Society shall be delivered to the Board.
36. The Board cannot authorize non-routine expenditures over $500.00 without authority from a general meeting of the membership.
37. The Directors may exercise all such powers of the Society as are not by The Societies Act of Alberta or by the by-laws required to be exercised by the members at general meetings. The Directors shall have power to authorize expenditures on behalf of the Society and may delegate by resolution to an officer or officers of the Society the right to employ and pay salaries to the employees. The Directors shall have the power to make expenditures for the purpose of furthering the objects of the Society.
38. The Directors may authorize the payment of all expenses incurred in setting up and registering the Society and all other expenses incidental to the formation of the Society, of which it considers preliminary.
39. The Board may prescribe such rules and regulations not inconsistent with these by-laws relating to the management and operation of the Society as they deem expedient, provided that such rules and regulations shall have force and effect only until the next general meeting of the members of the Society when they shall be confirmed, and in default of confirmation at such general meeting of members shall at all times, and from that time, cease to have force and effect.
40. The Board may require such employees of officers to give security to the Society and to maintain same in such form, amount and consideration as they deemed satisfactory for keeping, accounting for and delivering and paying over moneys and securities for money or other assets of the Society which may come into its hands.
41. The Board shall take such steps as they deem requisite to enable the Society to receive donations and benefits for the purpose of furthering the objects of the Society.

Part 8 - DUTIES OF PRESIDENT

42. The President shall be the chief executive officer of the Society. He shall preside as Chairman at all meetings of the Society and the Board of Directors. He shall have the general and active management of the business of the Society.
43. He shall see that orders and resolutions of the Board are carried into effect. He shall be a non-voting member of all committees.
44. He will prepare and submit to the members at the annual meeting a statement and report of the preceding year for its approval.
45. The President with the Secretary or other officer appointed by the Board for the purpose shall sign all by-laws and membership certificates.
46. During the absence or inability of the President, his duties and powers may be exercised by the Vice-President, and if the Vice-President, or such other Director as the Board may from time to time appoint for the purpose, exercises any such duty or power, the absence or inability of the President shall be presumed with reference thereto.

Part 9 - DUTIES OF VICE-PRESIDENT

47. The Vice-President shall act in the absence or disability of the President and shall perform such other duties as shall from time to time be imposed upon him by the Board.
48. Should both the President and the Vice-President be absent or disabled, the performance of their powers and duties shall be delegated to a Chairman appointed by the Board.

Part 10 - DUTIES OF SECRETARY

49. The Secretary shall be ex officio clerk of the Board of Directors. He shall attend all meetings of the Board and record all facts and minutes of all proceedings in the books kept for that purpose.
50. He shall give all notices required to be given to members and to Directors. He shall be the custodian of the seal of the Society and of all books, papers, records, correspondence, contracts and other documents belonging to the Society which he shall deliver up only when authorized by a resolution of the Board to do so and to such person or persons as may be named in the resolution, and he shall perform such other duties as may from time to time be determined by the Board.
51. The Secretary shall keep a record of all the members of the Society and their addresses, the date on which they became members, the date on which they ceased being members, the class of membership to which they belong, and shall send all notices of all the various meetings as required, and shall collect and receive the annual dues or assessments levied by the Society, such moneys to be promptly turned over to the Treasurer for deposit in a Bank, Trust Company, Credit Union or Treasury Branch as hereinafter required.
52. In the absence of the Secretary from a meeting, the Directors shall appoint another person to act as Secretary at the meeting.

Part 11 - DUTIES OF TREASURER

53. The Treasurer, or person performing the usual duties of a Treasurer, shall keep full and accurate accounts of all receipts and disbursements of the Society in proper books of accounts and shall deposit all moneys or other valuable effects in the name and to the credit of the Society in a Bank, Trust Company, Credit Union or Treasury Branch as may from time to time be designated by the Board.
54. He shall be designated as one of the signing officers of the Society in any financial transaction. He shall disburse the funds of the Society under the direction of the Board, taking proper vouchers therefor and shall render to the Board at the regular meetings therefor or whenever required of him, an account of all his transactions as Treasurer, and of the financial position of the Society.
55. He shall prepare for submission to the Annual Meeting a statement duly audited as hereinafter set forth of the financial position of the Society and submit a copy of same to the Secretary for the records of the Society. He shall also perform such other duties as may from time to time be determined by the Board.
56. The office of the Secretary and Treasurer may be filled by one person if any annual meeting for the election of officers shall so decide.

Part 12 - DUTIES OF OTHER OFFICERS

57. The duties of all other officers of the Society shall be such as the terms of their engagement call for or the Board requires of them.

Part 13 - PROCEEDINGS AT MEETINGS OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

58. A majority of the Directors shall form a quorum for the transaction of business.
59. Except as otherwise required by law, the Board of Directors may hold its meetings at such place or places as it may from time to time determine. No formal notice of any such meeting shall be necessary if all the Directors are present, or if those absent have signified their consent to the meeting being held in their absence.
60. Directors’meetings may be formally called by the President or Vice-President or by the Secretary on direction in writing of two Directors.
61. Notice of such meeting shall be delivered, telephoned or telegraphed to each Director not less than one day before the meeting is to take place or shall be mailed to each Director not less than two days before the meeting is to take place.
62. The statutory declaration of the Secretary or President that notice has been given pursuant to this by-law shall be sufficient and conclusive evidence of the giving of such notice. The Board may appoint a day or days in any month or months for regular meetings at an hour to be named and of such regular meeting no notice need be sent.
63. A Directors’meeting may also be held without notice, immediately following the annual meeting of the Society. The Directors may consider or transact any business either special or general at any meeting of the Board.

Part 14 - ERRORS IN NOTICE : BOARD OF DIRECTORS

64. No error or omission in giving such notice for a meeting of Directors shall invalidate such meeting or invalidate or make void any proceedings taken or had at such meeting and any Director may at any time waive notice of any such meeting and may ratify and approve of any or all proceedings taken or had thereat.

Part 15 - VOTING : BOARD OF DIRECTORS

65. Questions arising at any meeting of Directors shall be decided by a majority of votes. In case of an equality of votes, the Chairman, in addition to his original vote, shall have a second or casting vote. All votes at such meeting shall be taken by ballot if so demanded by any Director present, but if no demand be made, the vote shall be taken in the usual way by assent or dissent.
66. A declaration by the Chairman that a resolution has been carried and an entry to that effect in the minutes shall be admissible in evidence as prima facie proof of the fact without proof of the number or proportion of the votes recorded in favour of or against such resolution.
67. In the absence of the President his duties may be performed by the Vice-President or such other Director as the Board may from time to time appoint for the purpose.

Part 16 - REMUNERATION OF DIRECTORS

68. Unless authorized at any meeting and after notice for same shall have been given, no officer or member of the association shall receive any remuneration for his/her services.

Part 17 - BOOKS AND RECORDS

69. The Directors shall see that all necessary books and records of the Society required by the by-laws of the Society or by any applicable statute or law are regularly and properly kept.
70. The books and records of the Society shall be open to the inspection by members at all reasonable times, upon reasonable notice at the office of the Society. No fee shall be charge to members who wish to inspect the list of members or other records. If members requests a copy of a record, a fee of nor more than 25 cents for every 100 words copied shall be charged for this service as per Section 31 of the Societies Act.

Part 18 - SIGNATURE AND CERTIFICATION OF DOCUMENTS

71. Deeds, transfers, licenses, contracts and engagements on behalf of the Society shall be signed by either the President or Vice-President and by the Secretary. Contracts in the ordinary course of the Society’s operations may be entered into on behalf of the Society by the President, Vice-President, Treasurer or by any person authorized by the Board.
72. The Directors shall have power to appoint an officer or officers on behalf of the Society to sign contracts, documents, instruments in writing.
73. The terms “contracts, documents, or any instruments in writings” as used herein shall include deeds, mortgages, hypothecs, charges, conveyances, transfers and assignments of property real or personal, immovable or movable, agreements, releases, receipts and discharges for the payment of money or other obligations, conveyances, transfers and assignments of shares, stocks, bonds, debentures, or other securities and all paper writings.
74. The President, Vice-President, the Directors, Secretary or Treasurer, or any one of them, or any person or persons from time to time designated by the Board may transfer any and all shares, bonds or other securities from time to time standing in the name of the Society in its individual or any other capacity or as trustee or otherwise and may accept in the name of the Society transfers of shares, bonds or other securities from time to time transferred to the Society, and may make, execute and deliver any and all instruments in writing necessary or proper for such purposes, including the appointment of an attorney to make or accept transfers of shares, bonds or other securities on the books of any company or corporation.
75. The securities of the Society shall be deposited for safekeeping with one or more bankers, trust companies or other financial institutions to be selected by the Board. Any and all securities so deposited may be withdraw, from time to time, only upon the written order of the Society signed by such officer or officers, agent or agents of the Society, and in such manner, as shall from time to time be determined by resolution of the Board and such authority may be general or confined to specific instances. The institutions which may be so selected as custodians by the Board shall be fully protected in acting in accordance with the directions of the Board and shall in no event be liable for the due application of the securities so withdrawn from deposit or the proceeds thereof.
76. Notwithstanding any provisions to the contrary contained in the by-laws of the Society, the Board may at any time by resolution direct the manner in which, and the person or persons by whom, any particular instrument, contract or obligations of the Society may or shall be executed.

Part 19 - PROCEEDINGS AT ANNUAL AND OTHER MEETINGS OF MEMBERS

77. The originating meeting shall be the first annual meeting.
78. The Society shall hold an annual meeting on or before May 31st in each year, of which notice in writing to the last known address of each member shall be delivered in the mail 30 days prior to the date of the meeting.
79. At every annual meeting, in addition to any other business that may be transacted, the report of the Directors, the financial statement and the report of the Auditors shall be presented and a Board of Directors elected and auditors appointed for the ensuing year and the remuneration of the Auditors shall be fixed. The elected Board shall consists of a President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, (or Secretary-Treasurer), and three Directors. The officers and Directors so elected shall form a Board, and shall serve until their successors are elected and installed. Any vacancy occurring during the year shall be filled at the next meeting, provided it is so stated in the notice calling such meeting. Any member in good standing shall be eligible to any office in the Society.
80. General meetings of the Society may be called at any time by the Secretary upon the instructions of the President or Board by notice in writing to the last known address of each member, delivered in the mail eight days prior to the date of such meeting. A special meeting shall be called by the President or Secretary upon receipt by him of a petition signed by one-third of the members in good standing, setting the reasons for calling such meeting, which shall be by letter to the last known address of each member, delivered in the mail eight days prior to the meeting.
81. The Board of Directors or one-third of the members of the Society may requisition the Directors to call a general meeting of the Society for any of the purposes stated in the requisition. It shall be the responsibility of the Board to ensure that 8 days notice of such meetings shall be given to every member of the Society.
82. Every notice of the general meeting shall state the nature and the business of the meeting.
83. Questions arising at any meeting of the Society shall be decided by a majority of votes. In case of an equality of votes, the Chairman shall call a second vote. In the event the second vote results in an equality of votes the resolution shall be lost.
84. The quorum for transaction of business at any general meeting of the Society shall be a majority of the number of members.
85. Any member who has not withdrawn from membership nor has been suspended shall have the right to vote at any meeting of the Society.
86. Each member of the Society may vote by proxy; such proxy need not himself be a member but before voting shall produce and deposit with the Secretary sufficient appointment in writing from his constituent or constituents. No member shall be entitled either in person or by proxy to vote at meetings of the Society unless he has paid all dues or fees, if any, then payable by him.
87. A corporate member voting by proxy may vote by its authorized representative, who is entitled to speak and vote, and in all other respects exercise the rights of a member, and that representative shall be reckoned as a member for all purposes with respect to a meeting of the Society.
88. The rules of procedure at general meetings of the Society shall be determined at the first general meeting and may be amended by ordinary resolution.
89. No public notice nor advertisement of members’meetings annual or general, shall be required.

90. Special business is:

a) all business at an extraordinary general meeting except the adoption of rules of order; and
b) all business transacted at an annual general meeting, except

i) the adoption of rules of order;
ii) the consideration of the financial statements;
iii) the report of the Directors;
iv) the report of the Auditors;
v) the election of Directors;
vi) the appointment of the Auditors, if required; and
vii) the other business that, under these by-laws, ought to be transacted at an annual general meeting, or business which is brought under consideration by the report of the Directors issued with the notice convening the meeting.

91. No business, other than the election of a Chairman and the adjournment or termination of the meeting, shall be conducted at a general meeting at a time when a quorum is not present.
92. If at any time during a general meeting there ceases to be a quorum present, business then in progress shall be suspended until there is a quorum present or until the meeting is adjourned or terminated.
93. If within 30 minutes from the time appointed for a general meeting a quorum is not present, the meeting, if convened on the requisition of members, shall be terminated; but in any other case, it shall stand adjourned to the same day in the next week, at the same time and place, and if, at the adjourned meeting, a quorum is not present within 30 minutes from the time appointed for the meeting, the members present constitute a quorum.
94. Subject to by-law 95, the President of the Society, the Vice-President or in the absence of both, one of the other Directors present, shall preside as Chairman of a general meeting.
95. If at a general meeting there is no President, Vice-President or other Director present within 15 minutes after the time appointed for holding the meeting; or the President and all the other Directors present are unwilling to act as Chairman, the members present shall choose one of their members to be Chairman.

96. A general meeting may be adjourned from time to time and from place to place, but no business shall be transacted at an adjourned meeting other than the business left unfinished at the meeting from which the adjournment took place. When a meeting is adjourned for 10 days or more, notice of the adjourned meeting shall be given as in the case of the original meeting. Except as provided in this by-law, it is not necessary to give notice of an adjournment or of the business to be transacted at an adjourned general meeting.
97. No resolution proposed at a meeting need be seconded and the Chairman of a meeting may move or propose a resolution.
98. In case of an equality of votes the Chairman shall have a casting or second vote in addition to the vote to which he may be entitled as a member and the proposed resolution shall pass.
99. Voting is by show of hands. Upon a show of hands, every member having voting rights shall have one vote, and unless a poll be demanded a declaration by the Chairman that a resolution has been carried or not carried and an entry to that effect in the minutes of the Society shall be admissible in evidence as prima facie proof of the fact without proof of the number or proportion of the votes accorded in favour of or against such resolution. The demand for a poll may be withdraw, but if a poll be demanded and not withdraw the question shall be decided by a majority of votes given by the members present in person or by proxy, and such poll shall be taken in such manner as the Chairman shall direct and the result of such poll shall be deemed the decision of the Society in general meeting upon the matter in question.
100. In case of an equality of votes at any general meeting, whether upon a show of hands or at a poll, the Chairman shall be entitled to a second or casting vote.

Part 20 - FINANCIAL YEAR

101. Unless otherwise ordered by the Board, the fiscal year of the Society shall terminate on the March 31st in each year.

Part 21 - BORROWING

102. For the purpose of carrying out its objects, the Society may borrow or raise or secure the payment of money in such manner as it thinks fit, and in particular by the issue of debentures, but this power shall be exercised only under the authority of the Society, and in no case shall debentures be issued without the sanction of a special resolution of the Society.
103. The Directors may from time to time

a) borrow money on the credit of the Society;
b) issue, sell or pledge securities of the Society; or
c) charge, mortgage, hypothecate or pledge all or any of the real or personal property of the Society, including book debts, rights, powers, franchises and undertakings, to secure any securities or any money borrowed, or other debt, or any other obligation or liability of the Society.

104. From time to time the Directors may authorize any Director, officer or employee of the Society or any other person to make arrangements with reference to the moneys borrowed or to be borrowed as aforesaid and as to the terms and conditions of the loan thereof, and as to the securities to be given thereof, with power to vary or modify such arrangements, terms and conditions and to give such additional securities for any moneys borrowed or remaining due by the Society as the Directors may authorize, and generally to manage, transact and settle the borrowing of money by the Society.

105. The Directors may authorize a Director or Directors, officer or officers, employee or employees of the Society or other person or persons whether connected with the Society or not, to sign, execute, and give on behalf of the Society, all documents, agreements, and promises necessary or desirable for the purpose aforesaid and to draw, make and accept, endorse, execute and issue cheques, promissory notes, bills of exchange, bills of lading and other negotiable or transferable instruments in the name and all renewable thereof, or substitutions therefore, if so signed shall be binding upon the Society.
106. The powers hereby conferred shall be deemed to be supplement of, not substitution for, any power to borrow money for the purposes of the Society, possessed by its Directors or officers independently of by-laws 104 and 105.
107. The members may by special resolution restrict the borrowing powers of the Directors, but a restriction imposed expires at the next annual general meeting.

Part 22 - AUDITORS

108. The books, accounts and records of the Secretary and Treasurer shall be audited at least once each year by a duly qualified accountant or by two members of the Society elected for that purpose at the Annual Meeting. A complete and proper statement of the standing of the books for the previous year shall be submitted by such Auditor at the Annual Meeting of the Society. The fiscal year of the Society in each year shall be March 31st.
109. The books and records of the Society may be inspected by any member of the Society at the Annual meeting provided for herein or at anytime upon giving reasonable notice and arranging a time satisfactory to the officer or officers having charge of same. Each member of the Board shall at all times have access to such books and records.
110. The first Auditor shall be appointed by the Directors who shall also fill all vacancies occurring in the office of the Auditor.
111. At each annual general meeting the Society shall appoint an Auditor to hold office until he is re-elected or his successor is elected at the next annual general meeting.
112. An Auditor may be removed by ordinary resolution.
113. An Auditor shall be promptly informed in writing of appointment or removal.

Part 23 - SEAL

114. The seal of the Society has not yet been purchased. The Directors may provide a common seal for the Society and may destroy a seal and substitute a new seal in its place.
115. The common seal shall be affixed only when authorized by a resolution of the Directors and then only in the presence of the persons prescribed in the resolution, or if no persons are prescribed, in the presence of the President and Secretary or President and Secretary-Treasurer.

Part 24 - IDEMNITIES TO DIRECTORS AND OTHERS

116. Every Director or officer of the Society or other person who has undertaken or is about to undertake any liability on behalf of the Society and their heirs, executors, administrators and estate, respectively, shall at all times, be indemnified and saved harmless, out of the funds of the Society from and against:

a) All costs, charges, and expenses whatsoever which such Director, officer or other person sustains or incurs in or about any action, suit or proceedings which is brought or prosecuted against him for, or in respect of any act, deed, matter or thing whatsoever made, done or permitted by him in or about the execution of the duties of his office except by his own willful neglect.
b) All other costs, charges and expenses, which he sustains or incurs in or about or in relation to the affairs thereof, except such costs, charges or expenses as are occasioned by his own willful neglect.

Part 25 - WINDING UP

117. It is the unalterable provision of this by-law that members of this Society shall have no interest in the property and assets of the Society; and that upon dissolution or winding up of the Society, any funds and assets of the Society remaining after satisfaction of its debts and liabilities, shall be distributed to a recognized Charitable Organization in the area whose objects most closely accord with those of this Society as determined by its members at dissolution.

Part 26 - BY-LAWS

118. The By-Laws may be rescinded or altered or added by a Special Resolution. The special resolution must be dated and verified by a person authorized by the Society.
119. Notice to amend any by-laws or introduce a new one shall be given in writing at a meeting of the Society prior to the meeting or circulated to the members of the Society present at any general meeting.
120. A change in the by-laws shall come into effect after the special resolution has been registered at the Corporate Registry.

Part 27 - ALTERATION OF OBJECTS

121. The Society may add or remove some of its objects if the members pass a special resolution to do so. The alteration to the objects does not take effect until the special resolution, which must dated and verified by an authorized person of the Society, is registered at Corporate Registry.

Part 28 - ARBITRATION

122. Disputes shall be settled by arbitration. Unless new by-laws provide otherwise, the arbitration shall be regulated by the Arbitration Act.

Part 29 - BRANCH SOCIETIES

123. The Society may establish branches and shall send a notice to Corporate Registry setting out:

a) the date on which the branch society was authorized
b) the title, locality and powers of the branch society
c) any other information the Registrar requires

124. The Society shall notify Corporate Registry when a branch ceases to exist.

Part 30 - FINES

125. Any member who contravenes Society by-laws shall be fined not more than $5.00.

DATED this ______________________day of ______________________________20_______

NAME(SIGNATURE) PLEASE PRINT NAME BELOW SIGNATURE
COMPLETE ADDRESS

1.________________________________________________________________________________________

2.________________________________________________________________________________________

3.________________________________________________________________________________________

4.________________________________________________________________________________________

5.________________________________________________________________________________________

WITNESS:

NAME(SIGNATURE) COMPLETE ADDRESS
________________________________________________________________________________________

E) Membership Form

Membership Form

Mount Benson Preservation Society

Signature: ____________________________________________________________

Name: __________________________________________________________________

Organization: ____________________________________________________________

Position: ____________________________________________________________

Address: ____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

City/Town: ______________________________________________________

Province: ____________________________________________________________

Postal Code: ____________________________________________________________

Telephone: ____________________________________________________________

E-mail: ______________________________________________________

My Areas of Interest/Research Include:_______________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

Student/Unwaged $30
Small NGOs*/Low-waged $30 - $60 **
Faculty/Professional $60
Institutional $80
Corporate $300

* Non-government organizations
** please pay what you can afford

Send this form directly to the office for the Society:

Secretariat
Mount Benson Preservation Society
#201, 59 Nicol Street
Nanaimo, British Columbia
Canada V9R 4S7

F) Explanation of the four interacting circles

The following four interacting circles diagram is a representation of The Global Community.

The four interacting circles are quality systems. They are used because together they form a neat geometric expression about a complicated intellectual concept. They represent interactions. These interactions occur between the systems and within each individual system.

Here same-size circles represent mathematical local/global indicators that have been developed for assessing and measuring sustainable development within four realities in local/global life. The Scale of Human and Earth Right is used within the mathematical model (see GCAC files for complete description of the model) reflects the importance of each quality system in ensuring a sound future for Earth.

People need a healthy environment and resources for industry. Businesses cannot thrive without people or resources. Economic stability depends on people, resources, and good businesses. And all of the above cannot exist without environment.

The four interacting circles are a simplistic expression of our need for one another, our interaction, the thoughtless damage we can cause. We are worlds within worlds orbiting in and through each other’s space. This interaction can be planned and executed in a caring, considerate manner so that all may exist and not destroy the other. The Global Community Assessment Centre (GCAC) measures, evaluates, and integrates the interactions and present results to Earth Community. GCAC offers a method based on fundamental principles, a sound science, and results are used to propose policies for management of global changes.

Letter to the Board of Directors of the Regional District of Nanaimo

Earth Community Organization (ECO)
Unit 201, 59 Nicol Street, Nanaimo, British Columbia, V9R 4S7, Canada
email: gdufour@globalcommunitywebnet.com

Monday, January 13, 2003

Joe Stanhope
Director and Chair
Board
Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN)
Eamail: corpsrv@rdn.bc
planning@rdn.bc.ca
growthmanagement@rdn.bc.ca

Dear members of the Regional District Board and RDN Growth Management Plan,

Sent via email: RE: Regional District Board and Regional District of Nanaimo Growth Management Plan

I am writing on behalf of the Earth Community Organization (ECO), also called The Global Community organization, the global civil society, the human family, all 6.2 billion people on Earth. The global civil society is the mind, heart and Soul of humanity, the human family. They maybe NGOs, businesses, agencies, scientists and professionals, religious groups, and other groups. A short history of ECO is available on the website at http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/gdufour/ECOhistory.htm

ECO has a membership of 600 members from 130 nations. We have so far organized two global dialogues the last one was held last August in Toronto at the Harbourfront Community Centre. Information for contacting the staff at the community centre is given at the end of this message. Issues, Program and workshop sessions of Global 2002 are listed on our website. We have already developed several global ministries including Earth Security, and we are forming Earth Government, its foundation. In time, Earth Government will make a lot of sense. A world overpopulation creates global problems and Earth Government is the only practical solution to our problems. Both global dialogues, Global 2000 and Global Dialogue 2002, show our results: universal values, global concepts, the Vision of the Earth in Year 20024, the Scale of Human and Earth Rights, the Charter of the Earth Community, the Earth Court of Justice, new local and global indicators, positive and constructive actions to sustain Earth and all life, a sense of direction for humanity, global ministries, recommendations to the United Nations and all Peoples of the world, a campaign to design the Earth flag is well on its way, and the determination of the membership of the Earth Community Organization in forming a democratically elected Earth Government.

We have an assessment centre, the Global Community Assessment Centre ( GCAC ), for discussion and joint action on issues of local and global concerns and for the restoration of the planet, our home.

We would like to be involved on local issues in Nanaimo, and that was the reason for proposing to the City of Nanaimo and the RD of Nanaimo an assessment proposal, that is to conduct a Biophysical and Economic Assessment of Mount Benson and Surrounding Ecosystems in the context of a Vancouver Island Urban and Rural Development Master Plan. The Master Plan will significantly improved the Vancouver Island future in regards to its environment, economic development, protection of its resource usages and decommissioning of old sites, and the quality of life of all citizens. There are letters to that effect in the January Newsletter on our website. After reviewing the Millstone River Greenway Vision and the RDN Growth Management Plan, I also proposed to do a follow up on the Vision, and to include the remaining section of the RD of Nanaimo in the follow up.

Some of the major results of the assessment will be concerned with:

     * Creating areas for outdoor recreation for everyone.
    * Promote ecotourism.
     * Preserving the park system that reflect the unique character and quality of our mountainous and sea setting.
     * Provide education and interpretation settings to citizens and tourists about natural and past heritage.
     * Protect and enhance wildlife habitats, native fauna and flora, riverine forests, waterfront environment.
     * Establish naturally sustainable landscapes and ecosystems.
     * Resolve pollution concerns.
     * Contribute to aesthetic quality.
     * Comprehensive expectation of the quality of the freshwater over the long run.
     * The economic impacts of environmental and health degradation, resource depletion, and depreciation of natural stocks. The natural stoks include forests, minerals, soils, fishery, water, wildlife, and air. The use of productive stocks give rise to income and, therefore, both people-made and natural stocks must be considered in a similar manner. The evaluation of sustainable development must include both types of stocks available for use as income or benefits, and all investments and returns as well. Consumption levels of both types of stocks must be maintained without depleting and depreciating the quality and quantity of services the stocks bring in creating wealth.
     * The status of each resource and the stocks and productive capacities of exploited populations and ecosystems, and make sure that those capacities are sustained and replenished after use.
     * The status of ecological processes and biological diversity of each natural resource; measuring the impacts of consuming a resource on other renewable resources, biological diversity, people health, and life-support systems, and establishing harvest levels.
     * The annual change in the stocks of natural resources, quality of the system, their costs, and the services they provide to the economy.
     * The welfare, economic development and quality of life of future generations.
     * Expenditures on pollution abatement and clean-ups of old sites.
     * Play a major role in shaping Nanaimo's image and, therefore, attract tourists and investors.

The Growth Management Plan and the Environment project are very important and should involved the civil society of Nanaimo in the decision-making. A Society should be formed to lobby government, educate the people in the community, be visible in the public, and bring up issues of concerns to the community. The Millstone River Greenway project was needed and certainly an excellent initiative but it died out after money ran out. As if people in the community are no longer concerned with the ecosystems when money runs out. A Society would not die out. It would always be there to help the community, money or no money. We propose the creation of an advisory committee made of environmental groups, and the civil society in the RD of Nanaimo.

The RDN Growth Management Plan must not support further fragmentation and use of endangered ecosystems, especially the Nanaimo Lowlands. Further development in those areas would greatly affect negatively the quality of life of the people in the community. It would be better to have no further development until a sustainable land-use plan is put in place that would take into account concerns from the civil society in Nanaimo, concerns such as conservation of our natural environment, drinking water protection, endangered fauna and flora, clean air, protection of fish habitats, and ecotourism. We are very concerned about the population increase in the region along with its needs of more golf courses and outdoor recreational facilities. Plan must be made to separate human activities from endangered ecosystems. The natural environment must be secured before further planning for development. RDN watersheds must also be given the highest protection.

We are proposing making Westwood Ridge a city park protected as an ecosystem reserve along with Mount Benson. Included here is a description of such a change.

We would also like participation of the City of Nanaimo in Global Dialogue 2004 to be held in the RDN on August 2004:
New Age Civilization of the 3rd Millennium:
the age of global co-operation and symbiotical relationships
theme
A Vision to Caring for Life and Earth

Global Dialogue 2004 is concerned with all local issues such as those listed above and also include economic and social issues of the RDN.

We are asking the City of Nanaimo and the RD of Nanaimo to help support our campaign to save Mount Benson and surrounding ecosystems from further development and logging. Help is needed in terms of petition package and brochure, signs, creation of the new Society, investigation expenses for the environmental assessment, and obtaining reports and maps already published by RDN. Help is needed in the purchasing of land to convert it to an ecological reserve or protected area.

Thank you for the opportunity to allow civil society participation in the growth of Nanaimo and of the Regional District of Nanaimo.

May the DIVINE WILL come into our lives and show us the way.
May our higher purpose in life bring us closer to the Soul of Humanity and God.

Cordially,

Germain

Information about the community where the global dialogue was held in August 2002:
Harbourfront Community Centre
Office phone (416) 392-1509
Fax (416) 392-1512
E-mail hcc@lefca.com
Address 627 Queen's Quay W, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 3G3
Location (Intersection) Toronto Central (Bathurst St-Queen's Quay W)
Officer Leona Rodall, Executive Director

Letter to His Worship, Gary Richard Korpan, Mayor of the City of Nanaimo

Earth Community Organization (ECO)
Unit 201, 59 Nicol Street, Nanaimo, British Columbia, V9R 4S7, Canada
email: gdufour@globalcommunitywebnet.com

Monday, January 13, 2003 His Worship Gary Richard Korpan
Mayor of the City of Nanaimo
3598 Hammond Bay Road
Nanaimo, B.C. V9T 1E9
council@city.nanaimo.bc.ca
gkorpan@city.nanaimo.bc.ca
http://www.city.nanaimo.bc.ca/b_clerk/council.asp

Dear Mayor Korpan:

Sent via email: RE: His Worship Gary Richard Korpan, council@city.nanaimo.bc.ca

Some of the major results of the assessment will be concerned with:

We are proposing making Westwood Ridge a city park protected as an ecosystem reserve along with Mount Benson. Included here is a description of such a change.

Global Dialogue 2004 is concerned with all local issues such as those listed above and also include economic and social issues of the RDN.

Thank you for the opportunity to allow civil society participation in the growth of Nanaimo and of the Regional District of Nanaimo.

May the DIVINE WILL come into our lives and show us the way.
May our higher purpose in life bring us closer to the Soul of Humanity and God.

Cordially,

Germain

Letter to Honourable Stan Hagen, Minister of Sustainable Resource Management of British Columbia, Canada

Earth Community Organization (ECO)
Unit 201, 59 Nicol Street, Nanaimo, British Columbia, V9R 4S7, Canada
email: gdufour@globalcommunitywebnet.com

Monday, January 13, 2003 Honourable Stan Hagen
Minister of Sustainable Resource Management of British Columbia
Canada
premier@gov.bc.ca
Phone: 250 356-9076
PO Box 9054
Stn PROV GOVT
Victoria BC V8W 9E2
send an email using
http://www.legis.gov.bc.ca/mla/3-4.asp
http://www.gov.bc.ca/bcgov/cont/
http://www.gov.bc.ca/prem/popt/exec/hagens.htm

Dear Honourable Stan Hagen:

Sent via email: RE: Honourable Stan Hagen, premier@gov.bc.ca

Some of the major results of the assessment will be concerned with:

We are proposing making Westwood Ridge a city park protected as an ecosystem reserve along with Mount Benson. Included here is a description of such a change.

Global Dialogue 2004 is concerned with all local issues such as those listed above and also include economic and social issues of the RDN.

Thank you for the opportunity to allow civil society participation in the growth of Nanaimo and of the Regional District of Nanaimo.

May the DIVINE WILL come into our lives and show us the way.
May our higher purpose in life bring us closer to the Soul of Humanity and God.

Cordially,

Germain

Petition to save Mount Benson and surrounding ecosystems

To support the right of the people in the community of the Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN) to participate in the decision-making process concerning the development of their community as it relates to the future of Mount Benson and surrounding ecosystems, sign the following petition and participate with us in the Campaign to make Westwood Ridge a City of Nanaimo 'protected park', and Mount Benson a RDN ‘protected park’.

Sign one of the two boxes or both of them. A signature means that you agree. An empty box means you do not agree. I have read the Petition to ask the City of Nanaimo to buy Westwood Ridge and make it a 'protected park', and RDN to buy Mount Benson and make it 'a protected park', and I hereby sign the petition:

Name(print)	Address	Phone	Date D/M/Y	City of Nanaimo buys Westwood Ridge	RDN buys Mount Benson

Mount Benson Preservation Society
Earth Community Organization (ECO)
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